It is suggested that either the physical experience of emotion or its conceptualization is the primary factor motivating the existence of emotion terminology, and it is contended that the English metaphors that indicate anger as a hot fluid in a container are physiologically based to some degree. Similar metaphors in Japanese, Chinese, Hungarian, Tahitian, and Wolof are identified, and it is argued that human concepts of anger are constrained by the experience of the physical body. The link between metaphorical and metonymical understandings of anger is investigated, and it is concluded that commonalities among cultural conceptions of anger indicate the importance of the body in these conceptions. (Copyright 1997, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.) (D. Weibel in LLBA 1997, vol. 31, n. 2)