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make a mountain out of a molehill

  1. To blow an issue or event out of proportion: “You have only a small blister on your heel, but you complain as though you broke your leg. Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill?”


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Idioms and Phrases

Exaggerate trifling difficulties, as in If you forgot you racket you can borrow one—don't make a mountain out of a molehill . This expression, alluding to the barely raised tunnels created by moles, was first recorded in John Fox's The Book of Martyrs (1570).

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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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make a monkey out ofmake a name for oneself