FrenchUne tempête dans un verre d'eau
Meaning: A great commotion over something trivial.
Literally: A storm in a glass of water
Example: “Toute cette polémique sur le logo, c'est une tempête dans un verre d'eau.” — All this controversy over the logo is a storm in a teacup.
English equivalent: A storm in a teacup
Other ways to say this
English: a storm in a teacup
Italian: questione di lana caprina Literally: Matter of goat's wool
Portuguese: fazer uma tempestade num copo de água Literally: To make a storm in a glass of water- French: Une guerre picrocholine Literally: A Picrocholine war
Origin: The image is a piece of applied physics: whatever a storm might do to the open sea, the waves it could raise inside a drinking glass are not going to trouble anyone standing nearby. Scale is the entire joke, and the phrase is first attested in French in 1849. It is popularly credited to Montesquieu, who is said to have used it of political upheaval in San Marino, a republic small enough to make the comparison land. English says a storm in a teacup, or, in America, a tempest in a teapot.
More French idioms
- Rendre son tablier To resign, usually in protest.
- Sans tambour ni trompette Discreetly, without any announcement.
- Prendre la tangente To slip away, or to dodge a question.
- Partir à Tataouine To be packed off somewhere remote and unpleasant.
- Mieux vaut tenir que courir Better to keep what you have than chase what you might get.
- Un travail de Titan An undertaking of enormous scale.
Explore another collection: Compliments & Insults
Compliments and insults from around the world, from the sweet to the savage.
- T'as pas inventé le fil à couper le beurre You're not exactly a genius — the wire to cut butter is about the most obvious tool imagi…
- Tête de mule An impossibly stubborn person who refuses to change their mind no matter what.
- C'est une vraie chèvre They're hopelessly stubborn and infuriating — a goat that refuses to be moved.
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