in a stew

Idioms  

1. Agitated, alarmed, or anxious. For example, Mary was in a stew about how her cake was going to turn out. It is also put as, as in Every Saturday the minister got in a stew about Sunday's sermon. This expression transfers the mixture of meat and vegetables constituting a stew to overheated mixed emotions. [c. 1800]

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Example Sentences

Some preferred to include it in a stew, while others salivated over the golden-brown fried option.

From BBC

Problem two: it's not just the opponents you could predict who are in a stew.

From BBC

"I use it in most of our menus. It's terrific in a stew or spaghetti Bolognese, its umami flavour will honestly lift almost any dish."

From BBC

I genuinely might have been fooled that it was an actual chunk of roast if it were in a stew or already shredded on a plate.

From The Verge

The authors express an acute understanding that people have always lived in a stew of history, and they situate each of their subjects not just within the ideas and attitudes of their day, but also within the legal and religious constraints that defined them as outcasts and abominations.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• agitated
• angry
• delirious
• distraught
• frenetic
• frenzied
• furious
• hectic
• mad
• overwrought
• weird