molehill

«molehill» in Mova's school dictionary: A small pile of earth pushed up by a mole digging its… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

noun (a molehill, molehills)

meaning for a pupil

1) A small pile of earth pushed up by a mole digging its tunnels underground. tree →

2) In the saying «make a mountain out of a molehill»: to treat a small problem as if it were a huge one. tree →

sense in the lessons

In nature lessons molehills on a lawn or field show that a mole lives underground. In everyday speech and stories, the idiom tells the reader that someone is overreacting. Phrases: «make a mountain out of a molehill», «a field full of molehills».

examples

• The football pitch was covered in molehills. tree →
• A mole digs tunnels and pushes the soil up into molehills. tree →
• You've only lost a pencil — don't make a mountain out of a molehill! tree →
• Grandad grumbled about the molehills on his lawn. tree →
• We never saw the mole, only fresh molehills each morning. tree →
• Mum said the argument was a molehill, not a mountain. tree →
• Gardeners sometimes use the fine soil from molehills for seed pots. tree →

note

Countable: a molehill, molehills. One word. The idiom is common and means «overreacting». The animal is a mole; do not confuse with «mole» the dark spot on skin or «mole» in chemistry.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «molehill» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.