Word.ws English Dictionary

kick up a stew

kick up a stew verb: to cause trouble; cause a dust-up; cause a hubbub.

Verb

kick up a stew

  1. To cause trouble; cause a dust-up; cause a hubbub.
    • But if you come to the United States to jest kick up a stew, / 'Tween Abner Jones an' his man Mike, an' neighbor Donahue, '[…]1898, James Riley, Songs of Two Peoples, page 42
    • "[…] would rush in and kick up a stew and get all the worst of it. That's not my style."1916, William Heyliger, Captain Fair-and-Square, page 91
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see kick, stew.
    • The Verna swerved close, her stern kicking up a stew as she started to back up.1994, Leftare P. Delis, The Inside Passage, page 166

Origin of kick up a stew

From dialectal stew (“(cloud of) dust”).

Questions about kick up a stew

What does kick up a stew mean?
Kick up a stew means to cause trouble; cause a dust-up; cause a hubbub.
What part of speech is kick up a stew?
Kick up a stew is a verb.

Words near kick up a stew in the dictionary

  1. kick to the curb
  2. kick to the kerb
  3. kick to touch
  4. kick up
  5. kick up a fuss
  6. kick up a stew
  7. kick up dust
  8. kick up one's heels
  9. kick up the arse
  10. kick up the ass
  11. kick up the backside

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kick up a stew (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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