in the soup
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
in a difficult or confusing situation
Literally: in the soup
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
What resulted was a wonderful system for diversifying individual bank risk, but only by magnifying the default risk of all banks that held what came to be called " toxic " debt.
If you can't get your own way or what you want by openly and honestly asking for it, don't use sly or surreptitious methods because they could backfire and land you in the soup.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “in the soup” mean?
in a difficult or confusing situation Literally: in the soup
Is “in the soup” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.