make a big thing out of

present singular third person makes a big thing out of · participle present making a big thing out of · participle past made a big thing out of · past made a big thing out of · alternative make a big thing of

1. idiomatictransitiveTo call attention to or publicize; to make a fuss about, especially unnecessarily.

   "Mr. Marlowe," she told him quietly, "makes a big thing out of trifles. But when it comes to a really big thing—like saving a man's life—he is out by the lake watching a silly speedboat."

   1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 42, in The Long Good-bye, London: Hamish Hamilton, →OCLC; republished as The Long Goodbye, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, August 1992, →ISBN, page 302

   5 more examples

   "I don't know but what you are right. We intend to make a big thing out of you, Dick Rover." / "How?" / "I told you before you'd find out soon enough." / "I presume you'll try to make my father ransom me, or something like that."

   1901, Arthur M. Winfield [pseudonym; Edward Stratemeyer], “The Sailing of the ‘Peacock’”, in The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes: Or The Secret of the Island Cave (Rover Boys’ Series for Young Americans; 5), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC, page 46

   I find, for example, that the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, which has made a big thing out of its members being Julliard graduates and of playing a certain amount of "straight" Bach (rather dully) side-by-side with its own songs, has already begun to suffocate itself and its listeners in its own intellectual pretensions.

   1969 April 7, Alan Rich, “J. S. Bach and His Thing”, in Clay S[chuette] Felker, editor, New York, volume 2, number 14, New York, N.Y.: New York Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 57, column 2

   Next Mr. Gregory went on to make a big thing out of the fact that he had caught them climbing "into" the school grounds not long before. He didn't exactly say so, but it was plain that he felt he had interrupted some kind of dry run—a training exercise for a crime in the planning.

   1970, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, chapter 19, in The Changeling, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →OCLC; republished Guildford, Surrey: The Lutterworth Press, 1976, →ISBN, page 179

   […] I would, out of respect for them [Hank Greenberg's parents], go along with not playing on Yom Kippur. But evidently it made a very big … You see, the press are always looking for unusual news, so they made a big thing out of it.

   2012, Peter Ephross, Martin Abramowitz, quoting Hank Greenberg, “Hank Greenberg: Detroit Tigers, 1930, 1933–1941, 1945–1946; Pittsburg Pirates, 1947: (1911–1986)”, in Jewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words: Oral Histories of 23 Players, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 33

   He’s physical and monosyllabic. He does all sorts of cool shit, and he subtly rediscovers his own heroism without making a big thing out of it. But he’s a supporting character, and he knows it.

   2017 December 1, Tom Breihan, “Mad Max: Fury Road Might Already be the Best Action Movie Ever Made”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 22 Feb 2018

   Synonyms: make a federal case of, make a meal of, make a production of, make a song and dance about, blow out of proportion