An idea or action that would have greatly upset the deceased. This hyperbole dates from the mid-nineteenth century. “Jefferson might turn in his grave if he knew,” wrote historian James Bryce (The American Commonwealth, 1888). It also is put as to roll over in one’s grave, and the Boston Globe quoted Leah Rabin, the widow of Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, in a headline, “Rabin spinning in his grave on Jerusalem, widow says” (Sept. 9, 2000).