out of the frying pan, into the fire
- idiom
- Informal
:
salir de Guatemala y entrar en Guatepeor
- After quitting her stressful job, she found her new one was even worse—truly out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Examples
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He moved to a new apartment to escape noisy neighbors, but ended up next to a construction site—out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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It was out of the frying pan, into the fire when the company switched managers during the crisis.
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It's just out of the frying pan, into the fire!
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He thought he was escaping, but it was out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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After quitting her stressful job, she discovered that her new position was even worse—truly out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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He escaped his noisy apartment, only to find that his new place was next to a construction site—out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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When the company changed leadership, many employees realized it was out of the frying pan, into the fire during the ongoing crisis.
How Bad
Surface Forms
Morphology
out + of + the + frying + pan, + into + the + fire
The image of moving 'out of the frying pan' and 'into the fire' transparently signals a shift from a bad situation to an even worse one, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words and basic spatial/change expressions can often infer the intended meaning. However, it is a conventional metaphorical proverb rather than a literal composition, and understanding relies on recognizing the figurative mapping (which varies cross-linguistically), so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
The idiom out of the frying pan, into the fire shows a simple picture of someone jumping out of a hot frying pan and then falling into an even hotter fire. That's why it means 'to escape a bad situation only to end up in a worse one'.