Other forms: tantra, tantrums
A tantrum is a young child's outburst of uncontrolled anger. Screaming, kicking, and usually on a shop floor.
It is a normal stage of development rather than bad behaviour, since small children feel enormous emotions and have no way yet to manage them. Parents call the worst kind a meltdown. The phrase throwing a tantrum is fixed. Applied to adults it is a deliberate insult, and describing a politician's response as a tantrum reduces it to childishness, which is exactly the point.
1nountantrumAn uncontrolled outburst of anger, especially by a small child.
“She threw a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket.”
From earlier tanterum. Further etymology unknown.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA