To add insult to injury

Meaning: To make a bad situation worse by a further offence.

Language: English

Literally: To add insult to injury

Category: Daily Life

Origin: From a Latin fable by Phaedrus in which a bald man, swatting a biting fly, slaps himself and is mocked for it.

More idioms — Daily Life

• Aus dem Häuschen sein — To be beside yourself with excitement.
• No dar pie con bola — To get everything wrong; to do nothing right.
• Capire fischi per fiaschi — To misunderstand completely.
• Avere un chiodo fisso — To be obsessed with one idea.
• Tirar o pai da forca — Said of something done in frantic urgency.
• Гол как сокол — Dirt poor; without a thing to your name.

More English idioms

• To butter someone up — To flatter someone to win their favour.
• Russian roulette — Any high-risk activity undertaken needlessly, where disaster may strike without warning.
• pull back the curtain — To expose a hidden truth or reality behind an appearance.
• present company excepted — These remarks do not apply to anyone currently present in this conversation.
• on sufferance — Tolerated reluctantly and only because one has no better choice.
• set in stone — Unchangeable and permanent, fixed beyond modification.

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