A fiery person who has no control over his temper. Harry Percy was so called. Lord Derby was sometimes called the “Hotspur of debate.” Lytton, in New Timon, calls him, “frank haughty, bold, the Rupert of debate.” (See Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV.)
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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.