Advertisement

Advertisement

View synonyms for spread oneself too thin

spread oneself too thin

  1. To engage in so many activities that one can't perform any of them well: “Last semester, Pamela tried to play basketball, serve on the student council, and work at her father's store. She quickly discovered that she was spreading herself too thin.”


Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

Overextend oneself, undertake too many different enterprises. For example, Tom's exhausted; what with work, volunteer activities, and social life he's spread himself too thin . This expression alludes to smearing something (like butter on bread) in such a thin layer that it does not cover the surface. Jonathan Swift used spread thin in a positive sense, that is, something should occur less often ( Polite Conversation , 1731–1738): “They [polite speeches] ought to be husbanded better, and spread much thinner.”

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


spread like wildfirespread option