have bigger fish to fry

🌎Region: International 📊Difficulty Level:intermediate

💡Meaning

To have more important or urgent things to do than the matter being discussed.

🕰️Origin

From the idea of cooking: if you have larger fish to fry, you focus on the bigger, more worthwhile catch rather than small fry. Recorded in English from the 1700s.

📝Notes

Casual idiom meaning you’re prioritizing more important matters. Can sound dismissive if used to brush someone off.

💬Examples

I can't argue about this right now—I have bigger fish to fry.
The manager said she had bigger fish to fry than deal with minor complaints.
Stop worrying about the seating chart; we have bigger fish to fry today.
He ignored the gossip because he had bigger fish to fry at work.
We can fix the paint later; we have bigger fish to fry before the deadline.

📘Grammar & Usage Notes

Usually used with HAVE in various tenses (have/had/will have). Often followed by “than …” (e.g., bigger fish to fry than this). Can also appear as “I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

🔗Synonyms

have more important things to do
have more pressing matters
have other priorities
have bigger priorities

↔️Antonyms

have time for that
focus on the small details
sweat the small stuff