make a meal of
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
[edit]make a meal of (third-person singular simple present makes a meal of, present participle making a meal of, simple past and past participle made a meal of)
- (idiomatic, transitive) To spend more time and energy on some task than it warrants; to make something overly complicated; to make a big thing out of.
- 1997, Alison Aprhys, Careers in Publishing and Bookselling: How to Get the Job You Want[1], Hale & Iremonger, →ISBN, page 191:
- Some people can make a meal out of the simplest task. If you give it to a busy person, they don’t have time to muck around on the edges and worry about it — they’ll just do it.
- a. 2004, Kate Williams, Using Information for Decision Making, Second edition, Elsevier, published 2004, →ISBN, page 53:
- They both looked good – I would have been happy with either version. There was no point in making a meal of the decision, so I just picked up the one which was nearest to me on the desk and said, ‘We’ll go with this one.’
- 2010 November 3, Andrew Barker, “Morning Glory (review)”, in Variety:
- Ford's character is a bit one-note, and his gravelly intonation suggests a drunken poet more than a respected newsman, yet he makes a meal of the role all the same, and his pronunciation of the word "frittata" may well be the film's high point.
- To eat something as a meal.
- Don't walk near the tiger: it'll make a meal of you.
Translations
[edit]spend more time and energy on some task than it warrant
eat something as a meal
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