Language: en
Meaning: (transitive,idiomatic)Tocallattentionto orpublicize; to make afussabout, especiallyunnecessarily.1901, Arthur M. Winfield [pseudonym;Edward Stratemeyer], “The Sailing of the ‘Peacock’”, inThe 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,page46:"I don't know but what you are right. We intend tomake a big thing out ofyou, 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."1953,Raymond Chandler, chapter 42, inThe Long Good-bye, London:Hamish Hamilton,→OCLC; republished asThe Long Goodbye, New York, N.Y.:Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, August 1992,→ISBN,page302:"Mr. Marlowe," she told him quietly, "makes a big thing out oftrifles. 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."1969April 7,Alan Rich, “J. S. Bach and His Thing”, inClay S[chuette] Felker, editor,New York, volume 2, number14, New York, N.Y.: New York Magazine Company,→ISSN,→OCLC,page57, column 2:I find, for example, that the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, which hasmade a big thing out ofits 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.1970,Zilpha Keatley Snyder, chapter 19, inThe Changeling, New York, N.Y.:Atheneum,→OCLC; republished Guildford, Surrey:The Lutterworth Press,1976,→ISBN,page179:Next Mr. Gregory went on tomake a big thing out ofthe 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.2012, Peter Ephross, Martin Abramowitz, quotingHank Greenberg, “Hank Greenberg:Detroit Tigers, 1930, 1933–1941, 1945–1946;Pittsburg Pirates, 1947: (1911–1986)”, inJewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words: Oral Histories of 23 Players, Jefferson, N.C.:McFarland & Company,→ISBN,page33:[…]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 theymade a big thing out ofit.2017December 1, Tom Breihan, “Mad Max: Fury RoadMight Already be the Best Action Movie Ever Made”, inThe A.V. Club[1], archived fromthe originalon22 February 2018:He’s physical and monosyllabic. He does all sorts of cool shit, and he subtly rediscovers his own heroism withoutmaking a big thing out ofit. But he’s a supporting character, and he knows it.
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