Word.ws English Dictionary

making a mountain out of a molehill

making a mountain out of a molehill is the present participle and gerund of make a mountain out of a molehill.

Meaning of make a mountain out of a molehill

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To treat a problem as greater than it is; to blow something out of proportion; to exaggerate the importance of something trivial.
    • If you’re stuck in traffic, try not to make a mountain out of a molehill worrying about it too much. You could be making it much worse.

Questions about making a mountain out of a molehill

What is making a mountain out of a molehill the present participle and gerund of?
Making a mountain out of a molehill is the present participle and gerund of make a mountain out of a molehill.

Words near making a mountain out of a molehill in the dictionary

  1. making a meal out of
  2. making a mistake
  3. making a mockery of
  4. making a monkey of
  5. making a monkey out of
  6. making a mountain out of a molehill
  7. making a move
  8. making a name for oneself
  9. making a night of it
  10. making a noise in the world
  11. making a nuisance of oneself

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: making a mountain out of a molehill (page history and authors); make a mountain out of a molehill (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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