Turkish: bir kaşık suda fırtına ('storm in a spoon of water').Swedish: storm i ett vattenglas ('storm in a glass of water').Spanish: una tormenta en un vaso de agua ('a storm in a glass of water').Serbian: Бура у чаши воде bura u čaši vode ('storm in a glass of water').Russian: Буря в стакане воды burya v stakane vody ('storm in a glass of water').Romanian: furtună într-un pahar cu apă ('storm in a glass of water').Portuguese: tempestade em copo d'água/uma tempestade num copo d'água ('storm in a glass of water/a tempest in a glass of water').Polish: burza w szklance wody ('a storm in a glass of water').Norwegian: storm i et vannglass ( Bokmål)/ storm i eit vassglas ( Nynorsk) ('a storm in a glass of water').Lithuanian: audra stiklinėje ('storm in a glass').Latvian: vētra ūdens glāzē ('storm in a glass of water').Latin: excitare fluctus in simpulo ('to stir up waves in a ladle').Korean: 찻잔속의 태풍 chat jan sokui taepung ('a typhoon in a teacup').Japanese: コップの中の嵐 koppu no naka no arashi ('a storm in a glass').Italian: una tempesta in un bicchiere d'acqua ('a storm in a glass of water').Icelandic: stormur í vatnsglasi ('a storm in a glass of water').Hungarian: vihar egy pohár vízben ('a storm in a glass of water').Hebrew: סערה בכוס תה se'arah bekos teh ('storm in a teacup').German: Sturm im Wasserglas ('storm in a glass of water').French: une tempête dans un verre d'eau ('a storm in a glass of water').Finnish: myrsky vesilasissa ('storm in a glass of water').Filipino: bagyo sa baso ('typhoon in a teacup').Estonian: torm veeklaasis ('storm in a glass of water').Esperanto: granda frakaso en malgranda glaso ('a large storm in a small glass').Dutch: een storm in een glas water ('a storm in a glass of water').Danish: en storm i et glas vand ('a storm in a glass of water').
Czech: bouře ve sklenici vody ('a storm in a glass of water').Chinese: 茶杯裡的風波、茶壺裡的風暴 ('winds and waves in a teacup storm in a teapot').Bulgarian: Буря в чаша вода burya v chasha voda ('storm in a glass of water').Arabic: زوبعة في فنجان zawba'a fi finjan ('a storm in a cup').Persian: از کاه کوه ساختن az kah kouh sakhtan ('a storm in a cup').Other languages Ī similar phrase exists in numerous other languages: There are several instances though of earlier British use of the similar phrase "storm in a wash-hand basin". The first recorded instance of the British English version, "storm in teacup", occurs in Catherine Sinclair's Modern Accomplishments in 1838. Just a little later, in 1825, in the Scottish journal Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a critical review of poets Hogg and Campbell also included the phrase "tempest in a teapot". This sentiment was then satirized in Carl Guttenberg's 1778 engraving of the Tea-Tax Tempest (shown above right), where Father Time flashes a magic lantern picture of an exploding teapot to America on the left and Britannia on the right, with British and American forces advancing towards the teapot. Also Lord North, Prime Minister of Great Britain, is credited for popularizing this phrase as characterizing the outbreak of American colonists against the tax on tea. One of the earliest occurrences in print of the modern version is in 1815, where Britain's Lord Chancellor Thurlow, sometime during his tenure of 1783–1792, is quoted as referring to a popular uprising on the Isle of Man as a "tempest in a teapot". The phrase also appeared in its French form une tempête dans un verre d'eau ('a tempest in a glass of water'), to refer to the popular uprising in the Republic of Geneva near the end of the eighteenth century. Then in the early third century AD, Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophistae, has Dorion ridiculing the description of a tempest in the Nautilus of Timotheus by saying that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan. Cicero, in the first century BC, in his De Legibus, used a similar phrase in Latin, possibly the precursor to the modern expressions, Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo ut dicitur Gratidius, translated: "For Gratidius raised a tempest in a ladle, as the saying is".