add insult to injury

Meanings

1. To further a loss with mockery or indignity; to worsen an already unfavorable situation.

Etymology

Derived from the fables of Phaedrus in the first century CE. The story was of a bald man who swats at a fly which has just landed on his head, but instead hits himself on the head. The fly comments, "You wished to kill me for a touch. What will you do to yourself since you have added insult to injury?" (quid facies tibi, Iniuriae qui addideris contumeliam?) The actual wording appears in English from the middle of the 18th century.