molehill

[ mohl-hil ]
See synonyms for molehill on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a small mound or ridge of earth raised up by a mole or moles burrowing under the ground.

Idioms about molehill

  1. make a mountain out of a molehill, to exaggerate a minor difficulty.

Origin of molehill

1
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at mole1, hill

Words Nearby molehill

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use molehill in a sentence

  • Few diplomatic events are more embarrassing than a summit that turns into a molehill.

    The War Over the Global Stimulus | Stryker McGuire | March 13, 2009 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • Gran'ma said they were making a mounting out of a molehill—and expelling people did the school no good.

    The Open Question | Elizabeth Robins
  • Call it, great lady, by another name; An humble modesty, that would not matchA molehill with Olympus.

  • She wondered why he, who did not usually trouble over trifles, made such a mountain of this molehill.

    Sons and Lovers | David Herbert Lawrence
  • To "remind us of Dickens" would be as difficult for many modern novelists as for a molehill to remind us of the Matterhorn.

    Essays on Modern Novelists | William Lyon Phelps
  • There is also such a thing as making nothing out of a molehill, in consequence of your head being too high to see it.

    The Moonstone | Wilkie Collins

British Dictionary definitions for molehill

molehill

/ (ˈməʊlˌhɪl) /


noun
  1. the small mound of earth thrown up by a burrowing mole

  2. make a mountain out of a molehill to exaggerate an unimportant matter out of all proportion

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with molehill

molehill

see make a mountain out of a molehill.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.