kettle of fish

n. pl. kettles of fish 1. A troublesomely awkward or embarrassing situation.2. A matter to be reckoned with: Making money and keeping it are two quite different kettles of fish.

kettle of fish

n 1. a situation; state of affairs (often used ironically in the phrase a pretty or fine kettle of fish) 2. case; matter for consideration: that's quite a different kettle of fish.

ket′tle of fish′

n. 1. an awkward, difficult, or bad situation; muddle; mess. 2. a state of affairs; matter under consideration: This new proposal is a different kettle of fish altogether. [1735–45]

kettle of fish

- Meaning "mess, muddle," the phrase is from "a pretty kettle of fish," a corruption of "kiddle of fish," in which a kiddle is a basket set in the opening of a weir for catching fish.See also related terms for mess.

Thesaurus

Noun

kettle of fish - informal terms for a difficult situation; "he got into a terrible fix"; "he made a muddle of his marriage"fix, jam, mess, muddle, pickle, holedifficulty - a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome; "grappling with financial difficulties"dog's breakfast, dog's dinner - a poor job; a mess; "they made a real dog's breakfast of that job"

kettle of fish

fine kettle of fish

A difficult or awkward situation; a mess. Primarily heard in US. Well, that's a fine kettle of fish. I thought I paid the credit card bill, but it turns out that I missed the due date by a week.See also: fine, fish, kettle, of

pretty kettle of fish

A difficult or awkward situation; a mess. Primarily heard in US. Well, that's a pretty kettle of fish. I thought I paid the credit card bill, but it turns out that I missed the due date by a week.See also: fish, kettle, of, pretty

kettle of fish

1. Also, a fine or pretty kettle of fish . An unpleasant or messy predicament, as in They haven't spoken in years, and they're assigned to adjoining seats-that's a fine kettle of fish . This term alludes to the Scottish riverside picnic called kettle of fish, where freshly caught salmon were boiled and eaten out of hand. [Early 1700s] 2. a different or another kettle of fish . A very different matter or issue, not necessarily a bad one. For example, They're paying for the meal? That's a different kettle of fish. [First half of 1900s] See also: fish, kettle, of

kettle of fish, a fine/pretty

A messy predicament. This term is believed to come from a Scottish custom of holding a riverside picnic, itself called a “kettle of fish,” where freshly caught live salmon are thrown into a kettle boiling over an open fire and then are eaten out of hand, definitely a messy procedure. Sir Walter Scott described just such a picnic in St. Ronan’s Well (1824), but the transfer to other kinds of messy predicament had already occurred in the early eighteenth century. The term appears in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and works by Dickens, Hardy, Shaw, and many others, but it may now be dying out, at least in America.See also: fine, kettle, of, pretty

kettle of fish

kettle of fish

kettle of fish

ket′tle of fish′

kettle of fish

kettle of fish

fine kettle of fish

pretty kettle of fish

kettle of fish

kettle of fish, a fine/pretty

kettle of fish

Synonyms for kettle of fish

noun informal terms for a difficult situation

Synonyms

Related Words