ADD INSULT TO INJURY Definition & Meaning

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add insult to injury

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Idioms and Phrases

Hurt a person's feelings after doing him or her harm; also, make a bad situation worse. For example, Not only did the club refuse him, but it published a list of the rejected applicants—that's adding insult to injury , or The nearest parking space was half a mile away, and then, to add insult to injury, it began to pour : The phrase is an ancient one, even older than its often cited use in the Roman writer Phaedrus's fable of the bald man and the fly. A fly bit the head of a bald man, who, trying to crush it, gave himself a heavy blow. The fly then jeered, “You want to avenge an insect's sting with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?” In English it was first recorded in 1748.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

To add insult to injury, employees of color experience these detriments while receiving substantial backlash.

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To add insult to injury, the highly qualified Brown was replaced by Air Force Lt.

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To add insult to injury, a photo went viral of a Springfield man walking with a goose in his hand, which people twisted into a false narrative.

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In this case, it's adding insult to injury.

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To add insult to injury, each breach of the perimeter was brought to my attention immediately — no matter where I was — thanks to the app on my smartphone.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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