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in a dither
Idioms and Phrases
Also, all of a dither ; in a flutter or tizzy . In a state of tremulous agitation, as in Planning the wedding put her in a dither , or He tried to pull himself together, but he was all of a dither , or She showed up in such a flutter that our meeting was useless . The noun dither dates from the early 1800s and goes back to the Middle English verb didderen , “to tremble”; in a flutter dates from the mid-1700s; in a tizzy dates from about 1930 and is of uncertain origin.Example Sentences
Center Theatre Group, in a dither after Michael Ritchie’s lackluster tenure, is undergoing a search for its new leader.
Let’s examine what really has the bankers in a dither about Omarova.
“I think when people are kind of in a dither — ‘whom are we going to get?’ — when a person comes in with that kind of cash I think that it can create an immediate bump,” said Richard Vatz, a professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University in Towson, Maryland.
His reputation for extensive note-taking reportedly has Trump advisers in a dither about what damage he could do in the impeachment probe.
So when director Robert J. Flaherty films his classic documentary “Man of Aran” nearby, the community, dazzled by the prospect of appearing in a Hollywood “fill-um,” is understandably in a dither.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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