Making a mountain out of a molehill is an idiom referring to over-reactive, histrionic behaviour where a person makes too much of a minor issue. It seems to have come into existence in the 16th century.
The idiom is a metaphor for the common behaviour of responding disproportionately to something - usually an adverse circumstance. One who makes a mountain out of a molehill is said to be greatly exaggerating the severity of the situation. [1] In cognitive psychology, this form of distortion is called magnification [2] or overreacting. The phrase itself is so common that a study by psychologists found that with respect to familiarity and image value, it ranks high among the 203 common sayings they tested. [3]
Similar idioms include Much ado about nothing and Making a song and dance about nothing. The meaning finds its opposite in the fable about the mountain in labour that gives birth to a mouse. In the former too much is made of little; in the latter one is led to expect much, but with too little result. The two appear to converge in William Caxton's translation of the fable (1484), where he makes of the mountain "a hylle whiche beganne to tremble and shake by cause of the molle whiche delved it". [4] In other words, he mimics the meaning of the fable by turning a mountain into a molehill. It was in the context of this bringing together of the two ideas that the English idiom grew.
The earliest recorded use of the alliterative phrase making a mountain out of a molehill dates from 1548. The word mole was less than two hundred years old by then. Previous to that it had been known by its Old English name wand, which had slowly changed to want. A molehill was known as a wantitump, a word that continued in dialect use for centuries more. [5] The former name of want was then replaced by mold(e)warp (meaning earth-thrower), [6] a shortened version of which (molle) began to appear in the later 14th century [7] and the word molehill in the first half of the 15th century. [8]
The idiom is found in Nicholas Udall's translation of The first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente (1548) in the statement that "The Sophistes of Grece coulde through their copiousness make an Elephant of a flye, and a mountaine of a mollehill." The comparison of the elephant with a fly (elephantem ex musca facere) is an old Latin proverb that Erasmus recorded in his collection of such phrases, the Adagia, [9] European variations on which persist. The mountain and molehill seem to have been added by Udall [10] and the phrase has continued in popular use ever since. If the idiom was not coined by Udall himself, the linguistic evidence above suggests that it cannot have been in existence long.
An idiom is a phrase or expression that usually presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase. Some phrases which become figurative idioms, however, do retain the phrase's literal meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. Idioms occur frequently in all languages; in English alone there are an estimated twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions.
Moles are small mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have cylindrical bodies, velvety fur, very small, inconspicuous eyes and ears, reduced hindlimbs, and short, powerful forelimbs with large paws adapted for digging.
An idiom dictionary is a dictionary or phrase book that lists and explains idioms – distinctive words or phrases having a figurative meaning that goes beyond the original semantics of the words.
Chengyu are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. Chengyu were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in written vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language, though some dictionaries list over 20,000. Chengyu are considered the collected wisdom of the Chinese culture, and contain the experiences, moral concepts, and admonishments from previous generations of Chinese speakers. Chengyu still play an important role in Chinese conversation and education. Chinese idioms are one of four types of formulaic expressions, which also include collocations, two-part allegorical sayings called xiehouyu, and proverbs.
The expression "the elephant in the room" is a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory, or dangerous. The metaphorical elephant represents an obvious problem or difficult situation that people do not want to talk about.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index. From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.
A pig in a poke is a thing that is bought without first being inspected, and thus of unknown authenticity or quality. The idiom is attested in 1555:
A molehill is a conical mound of loose soil raised by small burrowing mammals, including moles, but also similar animals such as mole-rats, and voles. The word is first recorded in the first half of the 15th century. Formerly the hill was known as a 'wantitump', a word still in dialect use for centuries afterwards.
"The pot calling the kettle black" is a proverbial idiom that may be of Spanish origin, of which English versions began to appear in the first half of the 17th century. It means a situation in which somebody accuses someone else of a fault which the accuser shares, and therefore is an example of psychological projection, or hypocrisy. Use of the expression to discredit or deflect a claim of wrongdoing by attacking the originator of the claim for their own similar behaviour is the tu quoque logical fallacy.
To kick the bucket is an English idiom considered a euphemistic, informal, or slang term meaning "to die". Its origin remains unclear, though there have been several theories.
Tempest in a teapot, or also phrased as storm in a teacup, or tempest in a teacup, is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion. There are also lesser known or earlier variants, such as storm in a cream bowl, tempest in a glass of water, storm in a wash-hand basin, and storm in a glass of water.
"Call a spade a spade" is a figurative expression. It refers to calling something "as it is"—that is, by its right or proper name, without "beating about the bush", but rather speaking truthfully, frankly, and directly about a topic, even to the point of bluntness or rudeness, and even if the subject is considered coarse, impolite, or unpleasant.
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words. By another definition, an idiom is a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements. For example, an English speaker would understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – and also to actually kick a bucket. Furthermore, they would understand when each meaning is being used in context.
Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". Several other idioms such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings. The mythical situation also developed a proverbial use in which seeking to choose between equally dangerous extremes is seen as leading inevitably to disaster.
Suffer fools gladly is a well-known phrase in contemporary use, first coined by Saint Paul in his second letter to the Church at Corinth. The full verse of the original source of the idiom, 2 Corinthians 11:19 (KJV), reads "For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise." The New International Version states "You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise!"
The Mountain in Labour is one of Aesop's Fables and appears as number 520 in the Perry Index. The story became proverbial in Classical times and was applied to a variety of situations. It refers to speech acts which promise much but deliver little, especially in literary and political contexts. In more modern times the satirical intention behind the fable was given greater emphasis following Jean de la Fontaine's interpretation of it. Illustrations to the text underlined its ironical application particularly and went on to influence cartoons referring to the fable elsewhere in Europe and America.
The Hawk and the Nightingale is one of the earliest fables recorded in Greek and there have been many variations on the story since Classical times. The original version is numbered 4 in the Perry Index and the later Aesop version, sometimes going under the title "The Hawk, the Nightingale and the Birdcatcher", is numbered 567. The stories began as a reflection on the arbitrary use of power and eventually shifted to being a lesson in the wise use of resources.
The Bird in Borrowed Feathers is a fable of Classical Greek origin usually ascribed to Aesop. It has existed in numerous different versions between that time and the Middle Ages, going by various titles and generally involving members of the corvid family. The lesson to be learned from it has also varied, depending on the context in which it was told. Several idioms derive from the fable.
Comprehension of idioms is the act of processing and understanding idioms. Idioms are a common type of figure of speech. Based on common linguistic definitions, an idiom is a combination of words that contains a meaning that cannot be understood based on the literal definition of the individual words. An example of an idiom is hit the sack, which means to go to bed. It can be used in a sentence like the following: I'm beat; I'm gonna hit the sack.
There are no less than six fables concerning an impertinent insect, which is taken in general to refer to the kind of interfering person who makes himself out falsely to share in the enterprise of others or to be of greater importance than he is in reality. Some of these stories are included among Aesop's Fables, while others are of later origin, and from them have been derived idioms in several languages.