Meaning
A muddle, mess or awkward state of affairs; an embarrassing predicament. Almost always ironic, with pretty, fine or nice doing the opposite of its usual work; distinct from 'a different kettle of fish', which merely means another matter altogether. Informal and dated; the modifying adjective is almost always ironic. Regional use: British English in flavour, but understood throughout the English-speaking world.
Origin
The figurative phrase is recorded from the early 1740s: Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740-41) has 'He has made a fine kettle on't', and Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews (1742) gives 'Here's a pretty Kettle of Fish'. The derivation is disputed. The traditional explanation points to the literal kettle of fish, the riverside parties on the banks of the Tweed at which newly caught salmon were boiled in kettles, described in William Thomson's Prospects and Observations (1791, recounting 1785); the Phrase Finder finds this saucepan account the more probable. The wordhistories blog rejects it as folk etymology, noting that the figurative uses precede the picnic descriptions by decades, and revives Ebenezer Cobham Brewer's 1877 theory that kettle corrupts kiddle, a netted fish-weir named in Magna Carta, so that the underlying image is a netful of thrashing fish. The true origin remains unsettled.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a fine kettle of fish
- a nice kettle of fish
- quite a kettle of fish
Usage Examples
- So the caterer cancelled on the morning of the wedding - that's a pretty kettle of fish.
- When both managers resigned the same week, the board was left with a fine kettle of fish.
- Mistaking the guest of honour for a waiter created a very awkward kettle of fish.