Meaning
In a state of worry, agitation, or anxious fuss about something - flustered and fretting rather than merely concerned. Usually constructed as 'in a stew about' or 'in a stew over' something, with intensifiers ('in a real stew') and negatives ('don't get in a stew'). Informal and somewhat old-fashioned. Informal and slightly dated; more at home in British English and older fiction than in contemporary conversation. Regional use: General English.
Origin
From the cooking verb 'stew', attested from the late fourteenth century for slow simmering, with the dish noun recorded by 1756 (Etymonline). Figurative heat language was already established - 'boil' for an agitated state is recorded from the 1600s - and 'to stew' for brooding or suffering the consequences of one's actions dates from the mid-seventeenth century. The specific colloquial sense of 'stew' as a state of agitation or worry is recorded by 1806 (Etymonline), and the OED dates 'to be in a stew about' something to 1809 (Idiom Origins). The fuller expression 'stew in one's own juice', for being left to face the consequences of your own actions, is later still, from 1885. The image is of a person left slowly simmering in the heat of their own worries.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- get into a stew
- in a real stew
- in a stew about
- stew in one's own juice
Usage Examples
- The whole department was in a stew over the misplaced audit files.
- Don't get in a stew about the delay; the airline has rebooked everyone.
- She was in a real stew about which job offer to accept until her mentor weighed in.