Extremely angry. The face discoloured with passion or distress.
“Mr. Winkle pulled … till he was black in the face.”—Dickens: Pickwick Papers.
“He swore himself black in the face.”—Peter Pindar (Wolcott).
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.