English Explanatory Dictionary

much ado about nothing

English dictionary entry

Meanings

phrase
  1. A lot of fuss or bother about something trivial.

Pronunciation

/mʌtʃ əˈduː əˈbaʊt ˈnʌθɪŋ/ En-au-much ado about nothing.ogg

Word forms

much ado about nothing much adoe about nothing

Etymology

First appears c. the early 1500s, and first found in The Defense of the Aunswere to the Admonition, against the Replie of T. C., a pamphlet (1574) by John Whitgift (Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to 1604). Made popular and particularly known from the title of the comedy play Much Ado About Nothing (1598) by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare had earlier used ado (“business, activity”) in the play Romeo and Juliet (1592) Weele keepe no great adoe, a Friend or two, though it is now frequently used to mean fuss as a contraction of the phrase here; nothing in the title of the play is a wordplay which can also mean noting (“to notice”) besides the usual meaning of nothing.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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