out of proportion
54
4.6
- idiom
:
desproporcionado
- The costs of the project were out of proportion to the benefits we received.
- blown out of proportion
- pain out of proportion
- totally out of proportion
The possible benefits are way out of proportion to the actual cost of doing that.
- The possible benefits are way out of proportion to the actual cost of doing that.
- And so the Alamo becomes important all out of proportion to its scale of the fight itself.
- Anyways, I think that I think this this is a little blown out of proportion.
- It's as if our university years are larger, magnified out of proportion to any other time in life.
- And, and the things that people allegedly disagree on are really blown out of proportion.
- And then on the flip side of that, what is something that's either blown out of proportion or just straight false?
- And and that is to attach an importance to the audition that is way out of proportion to its actual importance.
- Like I'm not really trying to actually beef this guy, but he kind of just took it out of proportion and now it's almost turned more real on his side.
- And by don't, I mean social media has became such a toxic place where like the smallest thing ever can be blown out of proportion.
- And of course, that's the one that, you know, like the police like, like the news media likes to blow out of proportion.
- But through our imagination, we blow them out of proportion and we give them more power than they actually have or deserve.
- You know, at what is, is this getting blown out of proportion online or is this like a, an actual real immediate concern?
Examples
-
Even though I always felt that my father's reaction was far out of proportion, I never hated him.
Fiction book (1997) -
"I think your reaction is way out of proportion to the cause," says Zirkelback.
Fiction book (1999) -
The possible benefits are way out of proportion to the actual cost of doing that.
-
In it, he showed how the number of employees increases out of proportion to the work to be done.
Academic text (2006) -
State government spending has grown dramatically out of proportion to inflation and population growth.
Academic text (1997) -
However, the threat of MS-13 has been blown out of proportion by the media.
Blog text (9) -
Ever since Kapteyn, tiny Holland has produced astronomers far out of proportion to its population.
Academic text (1991) -
Yeah, I mean, we just played the best show of our lives, and we've taken the smallest little incident, blown it out of proportion, and somehow made the whole gig feel like a failure.
-
The story's been blown out of proportion, and I wanna clarify right now that Suge and I have no bad feelings or anything towards each other.
-
His anger was completely out of proportion to the minor mistake I made.
Synonyms
98
4.2
Too high to be fair or reasonable
47
5.9
Too large or small compared with what is fair
1
6.7
Being too large or too small compared with something else
1
9.9
Not the same in size or importance as something else
Makes something seem bigger or more important than it really is
A thing with parts that do not match in size or shape
Found in larger numbers than expected
Antonyms
How Proportionate
Surface Forms
Morphology
out + of + proportion
The meaning is directly derivable from 'out' (meaning not within/away from) plus 'proportion' (a proper size or relation): together they yield 'not in the proper proportion' i.e. exaggerated or inappropriate. The pattern 'out of X' = 'not within X' is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would very likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Out of proportion comes from artists and builders: if one part is literally out of the right proportion, for example a huge head on a small body, the whole thing looks wrong. That's why we now use out of proportion to mean 'much larger, smaller, or more extreme than is reasonable'.