A storm in a teacup is a lot of noise and excitement about something unimportant. People use it about an argument or scandal that quickly died down, or to calm someone: the whole thing was blown out of proportion. This is the British version; Americans say a tempest in a teapot. The idiom is conversational; in an IELTS essay you can write a minor issue.
When would you say a storm in a teacup?
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be + just/all + a storm in a teacup; US: a tempest in a teapot
- The argument about the office fridge was just a storm in a teacup; everyone forgot it by lunch.
- Journalists called the row between the two ministers a storm in a teacup.
- The parents' complaints about the school trip turned out to be a storm in a teacup.
What changed
First versionTheir argument about the wedding was a storm in a glass of water.
RevisionTheir argument about the wedding was a storm in a teacup.
Several languages have a saying about a storm in a glass of water, and it's tempting to translate it word for word. But in English the storm fits in a teacup. So a glass of water was replaced with a teacup, and the rest of the sentence was left as it was.
A similar expression, make a mountain out of a molehill, describes a person who blows a problem out of proportion: Stop making a mountain out of a molehill. A storm in a teacup names the situation itself: a noisy row or scandal with nothing much behind it.
Your turn
For a day everyone at school was shouting about the new lunch menu, but by Friday nobody cared. It was just ___.
Show the answer
a storm in a teacup — Everyone was shouting about the menu, but a few days later nobody cared: that's a storm in a teacup. The calm before the storm is a quiet period just before serious events, whereas here there was noise that quickly died down.
Think of an argument or fuss at school, at work or on social media that was quickly forgotten. Say what the fuss was about and how long it lasted.
The row in our group chat about who should book the restaurant was a storm in a teacup that lasted about an hour.
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