Making a mountain out of a molehill: meaning, origin and two mistakes

To make a mountain out of a molehill means to treat a small problem as if it were a big one. A molehill is the little heap of soil a mole pushes up through a lawn, so the picture is a person turning that heap into a peak. English speakers have used the phrase since at least 1548, and the idea behind it is older still, only with an elephant and a fly.

Between couples and close friends, the phrase often comes out halfway through a small argument, and it rarely calms anything down. One reason is that there are two ways to get the size of a problem wrong, and the saying only names one of them.

An elephant, a fly and a molehill

The first known use in English comes from 1548, in an English translation of a book by the Dutch scholar Erasmus. The translator was describing the clever speakers of ancient Greece, who could talk anything up:

> "The Sophistes of Grece coulde through their copiousness make an Elephant of a flye, and a mountaine of a mollehill."

The elephant half was already old by then. Making an elephant out of a fly is an old Latin proverb, and Erasmus had put it into his large collection of sayings.

The mountain and molehill half is the English part. It seems to have been added by the translator himself, since nobody has found it written down any earlier. The word molehill is older than the saying and turns up in the 1400s. The English version stuck, and the elephant mostly stayed in other languages.

The same idea in other languages

Many languages kept the elephant. In Russian you make an elephant out of a fly. Dutch says "van een mug een olifant maken," with a mosquito instead of a fly, and German has almost the same line, "aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen." Estonian has the mosquito too, "teha sääsest elevant."

English has a few cousins of its own. British speakers call a small fuss a storm in a teacup, and Americans say a tempest in a teapot. In everyday talk, many people just say someone is blowing it out of proportion.

The empty bread basket

An example: Paul came home with a cloth bag of leeks and apples and no bread, for the third time that week. Lina held up the empty bread basket with one eyebrow raised and a half smile on her face. Paul opened his hands and grinned. "It's bread," he said. "You're making a mountain out of a molehill."

The half smile went. Twenty minutes later the talk had moved on to who remembers things in that house: the bread, the bills, the car's service, his sister's new address. Lina had been carrying all of it for months, and she had never said so, because each single thing looked too small to mention.

So the bread really was a molehill. The mountain was the remembering. Paul had answered the small thing, and Lina was talking about the big one. By the end of the evening they had a shared list on the fridge, and Paul went back out for bread.

Two ways to get the size wrong

The phrase points at one mistake, and there's a second one hiding behind it.

The first mistake is the one the saying names. Someone treats a small thing as a disaster, and the reaction is much bigger than the problem. A late reply, a wrong turn or a forgotten errand becomes a whole evening of bad feeling.

The second mistake goes the other way. Someone treats a real worry as nothing. They hear the small surface of it, the bread, and miss the weight underneath. People who make this mistake often think they're the calm one in the room.

In the bread story, Paul thought Lina was making the first mistake, when he was the one making the second. That can happen. The person who says "you're making a mountain out of a molehill" is sometimes right, and sometimes looking at the tip of something much bigger.

If you know you tend to replay small losses for hours, the advice in don't cry over spilled milk may help. If you tend to wave things off, the next section is for you.

Molehill or mountain? Four quick checks

Before you decide which one you're looking at, ask yourself:

1. Will this still matter in a week? If not, it may well be a molehill.
2. Is this the first time, or the fifth? Small things that keep coming back can add up to a mountain.
3. Is my reaction about this thing, or about something older?
4. Would it hurt if the other person brushed it off? If so, it's worth a calm word now.

None of these give a perfect answer. They slow you down long enough to catch one of the two mistakes before it happens. There's more on choosing what's worth raising in pick your battles.

Why the phrase itself starts fights

"You're making a mountain out of a molehill" tells the other person their feelings are the wrong size. Even when it's true, it lands as a judgment, and people rarely calm down after being told they shouldn't be upset. Usually they get louder, or they go quiet and file it away.

A question works better because it lets the other person show you the part you can't see. Here are some lines to try instead:

• "This seems bigger to you than it does to me. Tell me why."
• "Is it the bread, or is it something else?"
• "Hang on, I think I'm missing part of this."
• "Okay, what would help right now?"

And if you're the one being told you're overreacting, you can say what Lina eventually did: "On its own it's small. It's the fifth time that makes it big for me."

Some people really do turn every small thing into a scene, and there's a separate piece on dealing with a drama queen. Many people who make the odd mountain are simply tired, or carrying something nobody has noticed yet.

Loud right away or quiet for weeks, by type

Some people react to a small thing at once, out loud, and then it's over. Others say nothing, save it up, and then a tiny thing like bread sets off the whole pile. To the loud one, the quiet one seems to explode over nothing. To the quiet one, it's the tenth molehill. Personality type is part of this. Here are eight, sorted the way the types page lists them:

• Harmonizer keeps the peace for a long time, so a small complaint from them is often the first sign of a bigger one.
• Vitalizer says how they feel right away, warmly and loudly, and is usually fine again within the hour.
• Mentor reacts with big feeling in the moment and wants the other person to feel it with them.
• Inspector stays quiet and keeps a careful count until a clear line gets crossed.
• Dreamer rarely complains out loud and tends to pull back instead, which is easy to miss.
• Diplomat raises a problem straight away and expects a quick answer.
• Guardian remembers small slights for a long time and may bring up an old one alongside the new.
• Encourager bursts out quickly and forgets just as fast, sometimes before the other person has caught up.

When a loud reactor lives with a quiet storer, each can think the other gets the size wrong. Often they're both seeing part of it.

See how you two size up a problem

Two people can look at the same small thing and see completely different sizes. With Typeza, a couple can see the relationship type they make, including where they read each other easily and where they tend to talk past each other. The free couples compatibility test comes first, and your partner joins through your invite.

Questions people ask

What does "making a mountain out of a molehill" mean?

It means treating a small problem as if it were a big one, and reacting much more strongly than the situation needs.

Where does the phrase come from?

It first appears in English in 1548, in a translation of a book by Erasmus. The older half, an elephant made out of a fly, is an old Latin proverb.

What is a molehill?

It's the small mound of soil a mole pushes up while it digs under a lawn or field.

What else can you call it?

"A storm in a teacup," "a tempest in a teapot" or "blowing it out of proportion" all mean much the same.

Is it rude to tell someone they're making a mountain out of a molehill?

It often comes across that way, because it suggests they feel too much about too little. A question about what's bothering them usually goes better.

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Make a mountain out of a molehill": Nicholas Udall's 1548 translation of the Paraphrase of Erasmus, the Latin elephant proverb in Erasmus's Adagia, and the molehill half that Udall seems to have added.
• Wiktionary, "make a mountain out of a molehill": the Russian, Dutch, German and Estonian versions.

Written by Virko Kask, founder of Typeza
Written with the help of AI tools.