making a mountain out of a molehill
Inflating minor problems
Making a mountain out of a molehill is to treat a minor problem as if it were a major crisis.
The idiom captures the absurdity of inflating small troubles into towering obstacles: You forgot one appointment—stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
The expression dates to the sixteenth century and remains common.
- overreactionDisproportionate emotional response
- blow out of proportionExaggerate significance wildly
- hyperboleRhetorical extreme exaggeration
- storm in a teacupDisproportionate fuss over trifles
- complainingExpressing discontent verbally
crying wolf · making a fuss · overstatement · misjudgment · drama queen · speck · dramatization · gossiping · alarmism · panic · embellishment · distortion · aggrandizement · magnification · small potatoes · sensationalism · ranting · big deal
making a mountain out of a molehilldownplaying
Diminishing perceived significance
minimizing · underplaying · brushing off · shrugging off · trivializing
making a mountain out of a molehillkeeping cool
taking it in stride · keeping calm · keeping one's cool · keeping a cool head · rolling with the punches
mountain, mountains, mountainous, mountaineer, mountaineering, mounted, mounting