pour oil on troubled waters
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To calm a difficult or tense situation
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
làm cho tình huống khó khăn hoặc căng thẳng trở nên bình tĩnh
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: smoothing a turbulent sea surface with oil
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Barbara in particular is less than sympathetic towards him, but the old man eventually pours oil on troubled waters by explaining that as they travel together, so they will learn more of each other.
Ronni smiled a light smile, seeking to pour oil on troubled waters.
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 “pour oil on troubled waters” mean?
To calm a difficult or tense situation Literally: smoothing a turbulent sea surface with oil
Is “pour oil on troubled waters” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.