kettle of fish
2
8.6
- idiom
- Informal
:
situación complicada
- After the sudden change in plans, we found ourselves in quite a kettle of fish.
- a whole kettle of fish
- a different kettle of fish
This is a whole different kettle of fish.
- This is a whole different kettle of fish.
Examples
-
That's a very different kettle of fish.
Blog text (1) -
That was a whole other kettle of fish.
-
It's a pretty kettle of fish we're in.
-
Oh, this is a fine kettle of fish.
-
Those are another kettle of fish entirely.
-
- Ah, a fine kettle of fish you've found yourself in.
-
That's a whole other kettle of fish, my dear.
Fiction book (1995) -
We do think about class, but that's a different kettle of fish.
Blog text (18) -
Now, if we are talking massive layoffs because of Dodd-Frank and a dearth of financial business, then that's another kettle of fish.
Blog text (16) -
This project has turned into a real kettle of fish with all the unexpected issues we are facing.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A situation in which things are untidy and confused
81
6.0
A difficult situation that is hard to change
61
6.1
A difficult situation that is hard to escape or fix
48
6.0
A difficult situation that is hard to get out of
25
7.9
A difficult situation that is hard to escape or solve
21
4.0
A situation where a person is in trouble because of something they did
12
4.1
In trouble because you did something wrong
9
5.0
A confused, disorganized situation where things are not in order
4
9.3
In trouble because of a problem
4
3.7
A difficult situation that is hard to deal with
3
9.4
In a difficult situation with no easy way out
Antonyms
How Serious
Surface Forms
Morphology
kettle + of + fish
The meaning 'an awkward or problematic situation' cannot be derived from the literal words 'kettle' and 'fish' — a kettle containing fish does not conceptually map to difficulty. This is a conventionalized, culture-specific idiom (as in 'a different kettle of fish') and therefore would be unpredictable to a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Kettle of fish may come from the image of a big kettle full of slippery fish being boiled, a noisy, messy scene that is hard to manage. So the phrase came to mean 'an awkward, difficult, or problematic situation'.