Meaning
A great commotion over a trivial matter; an uproar wildly out of proportion to its real importance. The standard British form; the usual American equivalent is 'tempest in a teapot'. Dismissive in force, and applied to public rows and office squabbles alike. Dismissive and mildly judgmental, aimed at those making the fuss rather than the issue itself. Regional use: British English ('tempest in a teapot' chiefly American).
Origin
The ultimate ancestor is classical: Cicero, in De Legibus (1st century BC), quotes a Latin proverb about a man 'raising a storm in a simpulo' - a small sacrificial ladle - and Athenaeus records a similar jab about a tempest in a boiling saucepan. Word Histories traces the earliest known English use of the teacup form to a letter signed 'A Briton' in The Public Advertiser of London, 16 September 1775, which dismissed the American colonial unrest as 'a Storm in a Tea-cup that could hardly have drowned a Fly'. Other containers competed along the way - the OED, cited by World Wide Words, records 'storm in a cream bowl' and 'storm in a wash-hand basin', and an 1814 anecdote has Lord Chancellor Thurlow exclaiming 'a tempest in a tea-pot!' - while World Wide Words found the alliterative American 'tempest in a teapot' in the United States Democratic Review of January 1838. Word Histories also notes the parallel French une tempete dans un verre d'eau from 1785.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- storm in a cream bowl
- storm in a teapot
- tempest in a teacup
- tempest in a teapot
Usage Examples
- The dispute over the office thermostat turned out to be a storm in a teacup.
- Critics dismissed the censorship row as a storm in a teacup, but the editors took it seriously.
- What began as a typo in the newsletter became a storm in a teacup by Friday.