Idiom
strain at a gnat
Meaning
to make a mountain out of a molehill
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Don't strain at a gnat when the big problem is obvious.”
“You focus on tiny typos in the report while ignoring the fact that the data is completely wrong; you really strain at a gnat.”
“It is frustrating to watch the committee strain at a gnat regarding minor formatting rules while the entire project budget remains dangerously unapproved.”
Examples
simple
“Don't strain at a gnat when the big problem is obvious.”
contextual
“You focus on tiny typos in the report while ignoring the fact that the data is completely wrong; you really strain at a gnat.”
complex
“It is frustrating to watch the committee strain at a gnat regarding minor formatting rules while the entire project budget remains dangerously unapproved.”
Origin
From the King James Version of the Bible, verse Matthew 23:24.
Key words
Related idioms
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