Blow a fuse/gasket

Origin of: Blow a fuse/gasket

Blow a fuse/gasket

Both are idioms for losing one’s temper; blowing a fuse refers to the overloading of an electrical circuit, while blowing a gasket refers to too much pressure on a gasket or piston seal. The former idiom dates from the 1920s, the latter from the 1940s. The North American version of to blow a fuse is to short out.