Noun

1. A big fuss made in a small context.
   • 1887, Henry Theophilus Finck, Romantic Love and Personal Beauty http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=OCLC05256148&id=iUX9lud1mrwC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&sig=Hz9EJd0U5Z51aRkXejYI8HqTITw

     But this momentary ebullition of feeling is but a storm in a tea-kettle compared to the ferocity of a jealous lover seeking to devour his rival.

   • 1908, The Parliamentary Debates http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=0_oscfAuszTjbTCyXy&id=YDHi45tsCFAC&q=%22storm+in+a+tea+kettle%22&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Fq%3D%2522storm%2Bin%2Ba%2Btea%2Bkettle%2522&pgis=1

     Altogether this was rather a storm in a tea-kettle.

   • 1992, Linda Goodman, Linda Goodman's Love Signs http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0060968966&id=1ZaiCWVol4UC&pg=PA868&lpg=PA868&sig=YF-bibMM4zIDRZM-kOfKQLRrWQ8

     The Pisces ability to shrug complacently when things go wrong, refuse to make mountains out of molehills, stir up a storm in a teakettle, or cut down a beanstalk for no reason...leaving poor Jack to fall to the ground with a thud...is such a lovely thing.

   • 1999, Izaak Mansk, Emil Brut http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN1896209416&id=KF_45aPRyQ4C&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&sig=HVzByFa3hH5dfoFA3Tvl_IAFTds

     So, I feel sure, and Mr. Willoughby also, that what we have now is a “storm in a tea-kettle”, so he called it today on the telephone to me, and he is the specialist, the famous nephrologist, who knows intimately Mr. Hartman’s case.