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tempest in a teacup

tempest in a teacup is the alternative form of tempest in a teapot.

Meaning of tempest in a teapot

Noun

tempest in a teapot (plural tempests in teapots)

  1. (idiomatic) A major fuss over a trivial matter.
    • The media frenzy over the actor's drunken behavior was a tempest in a teapot.
    Synonyms:
    much ado about nothing, storm in a teacup, and its variants storm in a tea-kettle, storm in a glass of water, and storm in a teapot, tempest in a teacup, tempest in a tea-kettle

Forms of tempest in a teacup

pluraltempests in teacups

Questions about tempest in a teacup

What is tempest in a teacup the alternative form of?
Tempest in a teacup is the alternative form of tempest in a teapot.

Words near tempest in a teacup in the dictionary

  1. tempersome
  2. temperture
  3. tempes
  4. tempest
  5. tempest in a tea-kettle
  6. tempest in a teacup
  7. tempest in a teapot
  8. tempest-tossed
  9. tempest-tost
  10. Tempesta
  11. tempestarii

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tempest in a teacup (page history and authors); tempest in a teapot (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: “tempest in a teacup.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tempest_in_a_teacup. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.