Word.ws English Dictionary

make a meal out of

make a meal out of is the alternative form of make a meal of.

Meaning of make a meal of

Verb

make a meal of (third-person singular simple present makes a meal of, present participle making a meal of, simple past and past participle made a meal of)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To spend more time and energy on some task than it warrants; to make something overly complicated; to make a big thing out of.
    • Some people can make a meal out of the simplest task. If you give it to a busy person, they don’t have time to muck around on the edges and worry about it — they’ll just do it.1997, Alison Aprhys, Careers in Publishing and Bookselling: How to Get the Job You Want, Hale & Iremonger, →ISBN, page 191
  2. To eat something as a meal.
    • Don't walk near the tiger: it'll make a meal of you.

Forms of make a meal out of

third-person singular presentmakes a meal out of
present participlemaking a meal out of
past participlemade a meal out of
pastmade a meal out of

Questions about make a meal out of

What is make a meal out of the alternative form of?
Make a meal out of is the alternative form of make a meal of.

Words near make a meal out of in the dictionary

  1. make a lip
  2. make a living
  3. make a long arm
  4. make a mark
  5. make a meal of
  6. make a meal out of
  7. make a mistake
  8. make a mockery of
  9. make a monkey of
  10. make a monkey out of
  11. make a mountain out of a molehill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make a meal out of (page history and authors); make a meal of (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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Cite this entry: “make a meal out of.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/make_a_meal_out_of. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.