“Bigger fish to fry” is an idiom meaning someone has more important things to do. “Little fry” refers to minor matters. The origin is unknown, but it’s well-known in Irish and British culture. Other languages have their own versions. English has many idioms, with origins in other languages.
“Bigger fish to fry” is a colloquial expression in American or British English that generally means that someone has more important things to do than what is currently being done or proposed by someone. The phrase is one of many idioms in the English language that are made up of words that together can have a meaning that is unpredictable from what they appear to mean. Related idioms include “more fish to fry” and “little fry.”
Both common variants of the idiom also refer to someone who feels they have more important things to do with their time, or who is busy and can’t be bothered by current problems. The idiom “little fry” can also have a double meaning. Literally it can be interpreted as “small fish”, as well as having the connotation referring to minor or unimportant matters, as in “smallest fish to fry”.
The origin of the phrase “largest fish to fry” and related idioms are lost in antiquity, but it is a well-known phrase in both Irish and British culture. The first known written reference, when it was probably already widespread, was in The Memoirs, written by the English writer and gardener John Evelyn in 1660. The Memoirs were a collection of diaries in which Evelyn discussed the culture and politics of his day.
Other languages have their own variations on this phrase. The French idiom most closely related to it translates to “He has many more dogs to whip.” The version conveyed by the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes in the two volumes of Don Quixote de la Mancha, published in 1605 and 1615, was “other things to think about.” When Peter Anthony Motteux, an English author famous for his translations, translated Don Quixote in a 1712 edition in four volumes, he rendered Cervantes original sentence as “I have more fish to fry.”
There are so many idioms in the English language, with some sources claiming 1,600 to 3,500 of them in regular use, that it can be a difficult language to master. Over 130 of these phrases are said to have been invented by William Shakespeare alone. Many English idioms also have their origins in other languages such as Latin, Greek, French and German. The origin of the “largest fish to fry” may never be known, but idioms like this that have catchy alliteration and refer to common objects may be with us for a long time to come.
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