Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

American English has developed quite a few expressions revolving around hair and its attributes: let your hair down, hair standing on end, splitting hairs, and bad hair day.

What about the curious phrase hair of the dog? In modern incarnation, this expression is hairless...AND dogless, for that matter! Hair of the dog is a cure for a hangover, consisting of a nip or two of the alcohol that got you drunk the night before, on the logic that "like cures like."

Hair of the dog is an idiomatic echo of the ancient practice of curing the effects of a dogbite with a poultice made of the hair of the very dog that mauled your flesh. So, the full expression, is really hair of the dog that bit you, though of course today the dog bite is a metaphor for the savage effects of overindulgence.

This phrase has been with English speakers for centuries. It showed up in print for the first time in 1546 in a collection of English proverbs. The compiler, John Heywood, wrote, "I pray thee, let me and my fellow have a haire of the dog that bit us last night."

Radio Script > Hair of the Dog