to have a finger in many pies
- idiom
- Informal
:
meterse en muchos asuntos
- Despite his busy schedule, John loves to have a finger in many pies and never says no to a new project.
Examples
-
You can tell he likes to have a finger in many pies because he is always part of different committees.
-
As a manager, she tends to have a finger in many pies at the office.
-
She has a finger in many pies!
-
I have a finger in many pies at work.
-
Despite his busy schedule, John loves to have a finger in many pies and never says no to a new project.
-
As a manager, she tends to have a finger in many pies at the office.
-
You can tell he likes to have a finger in many pies because he is always part of different committees.
Synonyms
27
3.8
To manage several tasks at the same time, like work and family
23
3.9
To be very busy with many tasks
1
6.3
To have more jobs and duties than you can handle
Antonyms
How Involved
- Informal
6
7.0
- Informal
676
3.4
- Informal
486
1.0
56
3.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
have + a + finger + in + many + pies
The phrase's overall meaning ('to be involved in several different activities') cannot be directly derived from the literal words 'have', 'finger', 'many' and 'pies' — a B1 learner would likely interpret a literal image of fingers in baked goods rather than the abstract idea of wide involvement. This is a conventionalized idiom with a metaphorical sense that is not reliably predictable from its parts (even if some languages have similar idioms), so it should be treated as opaque.
Etymology
The idiom have a finger in many pies comes from the image of a person putting a finger into many different pies to taste or take a piece. So, it means 'to be involved in many different activities'.