go ballistic
To become very angry and irrational.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“My boss will go ballistic if we miss this deadline.”
“When he saw the deep scratch on his new car, he went ballistic in the parking lot.”
“The manager went ballistic upon discovering that the entire project budget had been squandered on unnecessary equipment.”
The idiom emerged from the military lexicon of the late 1950s and 1960s, a period defined by the introduction of second-generation jet fighters armed with guided missiles. In its original technical context, the term described a specific failure of equipment. A fully powered, non-ballistic missile was said to go ballistic when it lost its guidance system, ceased its controlled flight, and assumed a terminal, free-fall trajectory.
In subsequent decades, the term migrated from the description of technical failure to a broader association with the suborbital trajectories of long-range, typically nuclear-armed missiles. The transition from a lost missile to a nuclear one provided the linguistic leap from a mechanical error to an explosion of temper.
- 01
all dressed up and nowhere to go
Elaborately attired or otherwise fully prepared for an anticipated situation or activity which, nevertheless, fails to occur.
- 02
all systems go
Everything is ready.
- 03
as you go
While one is doing (something); as one progresses.
- 04
ballistic podiatry
The act of shooting oneself in the foot.
- 05
boldly go where no man has gone before
To break new ground.
- 06
come and go
To repeatedly appear and disappear; to be transient.
- 07
don't go there
Do not broach that topic.
- 08
easy come, easy go
Easily won and easily lost (usually said when resigned to a loss; something that comes in the same way, goes in the same way)
Last updated August 10, 2026