Out of the frying pan into the fire means escaping one problem and landing in an even worse one. You leave a noisy flat, and the new one is next to a building site. You change a slow supplier, and the new one loses your order. It's often a bitter comment on a change that backfired.
When would you say out of the frying pan into the fire?
Write a sentence — we'll check that the expression fits the situation and suggest what to fix.
The check is taking longer than usual. Your feedback will appear here automatically.
go / jump out of the frying pan into the fire
- Changing to an even noisier flat was out of the frying pan into the fire.
- We left a slow supplier for one that lost our order: out of the frying pan into the fire.
- By replacing one impossible deadline with two, they jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.
What changed
First versionHe went out of the frying pan in the fire when he changed teams.
RevisionHe went out of the frying pan into the fire when he changed teams.
In often feels like enough for anything to do with the inside of something. But this saying is about movement: you jump out of the pan and fall inside the fire, and movement inside takes into. In the fire would describe where something already is, so in became into.
From bad to worse just means things got worse, with no change of situation: Things went from bad to worse. Out of the frying pan into the fire is when you changed something yourself and it made things worse. A can of worms is a mess of problems that appears once you start looking into something.
Your turn
Complete the saying about moving from a bad situation to a worse one: Out of the frying pan ___ the fire.
Show the answer
into — You fall from the pan into the fire, inside it: into the fire. Onto means on a surface, and it isn't used in this saying.
Write about a time when trying to solve a problem only made things worse.
I swapped a crowded bus for a cancelled train: out of the frying pan into the fire.
Learn to use new words without mistakes
Write phrases with the words you are learning. LetsWords shows mistakes in usage and grammar, suggests corrections and explains them, and review helps the words stick.