to spread oneself thin
6
7.0
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
dispersarse
- Back in the day when I had 20 sites, I was spreading myself too thin, and no one site got the attention it deserved.
- spread yourself too thin
Examples
-
"Don't spread yourself too thin, Olga," he said.
Fiction book (1997) -
You're spreading yourself too thin.
-
We're spread too thin to give that kind of individual attention.
-
We're spread thin, sir, but we'll keep them held!
-
How can you not be spread too thin?
Fiction book (1992) -
The campaign staff in Connecticut is spread too thin.
-
"We've spread ourselves too thin," she said.
Fiction book (1990) -
He often spread himself too thin because, as he said, he was "just interested in everything."
Academic text (1992) -
He said I was spreading myself too thin and that it showed in my work.
-
You need to focus on your main project and not spread yourself thin with side tasks.
Synonyms
19
6.3
To try to do more than you can handle and cause strain
8
6.6
To try to do more than you can and fail
3
7.2
Make too much effort with your body or mind so it is unhealthy
Antonyms
How Stretched
1
6.1
- Informal
6
7.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase evokes the physical image of 'spreading' one’s limited resources (oneself) so broadly that they become 'thin' — a metaphorical but directly inferable mapping from the constituents 'spread' + 'oneself' + 'thin'. Because the sense is a common, cross-linguistically plausible metaphor (distributing effort/time) it is generally understandable to learners who know the component words, but it relies on metaphorical extension rather than purely literal composition.
Etymology
The idiom spread oneself thin comes from the image of taking a small amount of something and spreading it so thin that it barely covers a surface, and the oneself part shows it is you who is being stretched. So, to spread yourself thin means 'to try to do too many things at once' and end up without enough time or energy for any of them.