• Listen

  What it means

  Literally “to take against the grain of the hair.” The idiom means to rub someone the wrong way, to treat them harshly or contrarily, or to go against what someone wants. The image is of stroking fur or hair the wrong direction — unpleasant and irritating. It can describe a person whose behaviour consistently annoys or provokes others, or a deliberate strategy of pressuring someone by doing the opposite of what they expect. It is somewhat less common today but still widely understood.

  Vocabulary

  • brać — to take (imperfective)
  • pod — under/against (preposition governing accusative here)
  • włos — hair (singular, accusative)

  Grammar note

  'Pod' with the accusative indicates direction or manner, not location. 'Włos' is in the accusative singular. The phrase is typically used in the imperfective aspect ('brać') to describe a repeated or habitual irritating behaviour.

  Cultural context

  This expression belongs to an older, more colloquial register. It is equivalent to the English idiom 'to rub against the grain.' You are more likely to encounter it in literature or in speech from older Poles than in modern everyday conversation.

  Intermediate

Noticed a typo, a wrong translation, or anything that doesn't look right? We'd love to fix it — just let us know via the contact page. Thank you!