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Phrase(s): add insult to injury
Fig. Cliché to make a bad situation worse; to hurt the feelings of a person who has already been hurt. • First, the basement flooded, and then, to add insult to injury, a pipe burst in the kitchen. • My car barely started this morning, and to add insult to injury, I got a flat tire in the driveway.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs
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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.
American Heritage Idioms