add insult to injury

Idioms  

1. 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

Whatever happens in the Super Bowl, either Maye or Darnold is guaranteed to hoist the Lombardi Trophy—and add insult to injury for Gang Green.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 29, 2026

Her daughter Sandie thinks the health board's new and caveated admissions add "insult to injury".

From BBC • Jan. 24, 2026

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.

From Salon • Sep. 23, 2024

For Southwest, the sanctions add insult to injury.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 8, 2023

To add insult to injury, the Pythagoreans soon discovered that the golden ratio, the ultimate Pythagorean symbol of beauly and rationality, was an irrational number.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife