a storm in a teacup
Meaning: excessive fuss over something trivial; tempest in a teapot.
Language: English
Literally: a storm in a teacup
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: The joke is much older than the teacup. Cicero, writing in the first century BC, described someone stirring up waves in a ladle, and comparable phrases turn up in Greek — the pattern of naming a violent natural event and then confining it to an absurdly small domestic vessel is a very old way of mocking disproportion. English fitted it to tea: "storm in a teacup" is attested from the early 1800s, once tea was ordinary enough that a teacup was the obvious smallest vessel to hand. American English took the same idea to a slightly different piece of the tea service and says "tempest in a teapot," and both forms carry the identical implication — that the fury is genuine but the container is too small for any of it to matter.
Equivalents in other languages
- Portuguese: fazer uma tempestade num copo de água — literally: to make a storm in a glass of water
- French: Une tempête dans un verre d'eau — literally: A storm in a glass of water
More idioms — Food & Drink
- cry over spilled milk — to regret something past; useless to grieve over unchangeable events.
- hard pill to swallow — difficult to accept; unpleasant truth or reality.
- Hair of the dog — A morning drink taken to cure a hangover.
- Das ist mir Wurst — I couldn't care less either way.
- Jetzt geht's um die Wurst — Now it's crunch time — everything is at stake.
- Avere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca — To want to have it both ways.
More English idioms
- get the ball rolling — to start something; to initiate a process.
- as tough as old boots — very strong; enduring; difficult to break.
- head honcho — the person in charge; the leader.
- up the creek without a paddle — in a difficult situation without means to escape.
- paint the town red — to celebrate wildly; to party extensively.
- get the short end of the stick — to receive unfair treatment; to get the worse deal.
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