In Russia, the meaning of phraseology “bring to white heat” is understood even by those who have never in their life been in a workshop or forge where metal is melted. I would like to say a lot, but only a stamp suggests itself that can be applied to almost any geographical object: "Our homeland is a country of contrasts."
Origin
From the casual phrases, you can first understand that folk wisdom melted in those furnaces where the metal is brought to condition, so that it can then be reforged. Apparently, beauty not only saves the world, but also updates the language arsenal, because it was a vivid image that allowed the speech revolution to step over the threshold of the forge and go to the big world. First, the metal turns red, then yellow, and only then white. So it is with some people. They "change color" for a long time before they explode.
Value
A person brought to the edge of his patience and successfully passed it is the subject who fully embodies the phraseological hero “bring to white heat”, the meaning of which we will consider in this section. The following meaning is written in the dictionary of the object of study: "deprive of self-control, angry, enraged."
The wife is brought to condition by her husband’s dirty socks scattered around the house or the fact that his son eats too sloppy, neglecting the knife. The father is worried about the future of her daughter and painfully perceives her every skipping classes at the university, and on the day when she does attend classes, she is told that she was expelled because her father did not pay for the next semester. This is exactly what a person looks like in practice, who is “reduced to white heat”, phraseological unit, or rather its meaning, involves the accumulation of negative emotions in a certain situation, and then an explosion. But, as we know, anger is also different.
Synonyms and subtleties of definition
There is an instant breakdown. Such a state in court may be called a "state of passion." For example, in the film Insomnia (2002), the main villain played by Robin Williams justifies his crime with a state of passion. The victim laughed at him loudly and cynically at the crucial moment, and he only wanted her to shut up. But far from all the criminals believe, some of the forensic medical commission recognizes responsible and gives the term to the fullest.
The state of affect is a synonym for the meaning of phraseology “bring to white heat”. True, as a rule, these are extremes, and moreover, we are talking a little about something else. Of course, maybe a person who has become insane as a result of an emotional storm has boiled for a long time on fire, but for an outside observer, an affect is seconds.
It takes time to make metal flexible. Therefore, emotional outbursts are also assumed here, which are nevertheless properly prepared. For example, people can endure various minor household inconveniences, but reduced to white heat, they can break.
Let's talk about another synonym for the meaning of phraseology “bring to white heat” - “lose your temper”. Are they similar or not in content? Still, the object of research involves a certain process of escalating the situation, and people lose their temper, as a rule, immediately.
Each person, like the material, has its own “melting” temperature. This means that one takes 2 months to lose patience, and another takes two minutes. It turns out: time cannot serve as a reliable enough basis for distinguishing where it is better to use the usual expression "lost my temper" and where - "reduced to white heat." In some situations, it is impossible to notice a noticeable increase in the “degree of heating” of patience, because everything happens instantly. Therefore, use these two synonyms as interchangeably.
Today we examined the origin of the phraseology “bring to white heat”, its meaning and even briefly touched on synonyms.