What's the big idea?

What's the big idea?

A question that expresses frustration or annoyance about what is happening and asks (at least rhetorically) for the reason or motivation behind it. Are you dancing with my girl? What's the big idea? Hey, what's the big idea? Why are you wearing my clothes?
See also: big
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • here we go again
  • be a thorn in (one's) side
  • be a thorn in your flesh/side
  • It sucks
  • it/that sucks
  • a thorn in (one's) side
  • a thorn in someone's side
  • a thorn in your side
  • be a thorn in (one's) flesh
  • (just) as I expected
References in periodicals archive
What's The Big Idea? is a popular CBeebies show looking at big issues marketed as 'a starting point for introducing philosophy to young children'.
Print or project the activity What's the Big Idea?, and have students use it to identify central ideas and key supporting details in the article.
David Petraeus always liked to ask subordinates, "What's the big idea?" as a way of prodding thinking.
"What's the Big Idea?" asked Gordon James Gorman in his introductory presentation.
What's the Big Idea? Inventions that Changed Life on Earth Forever
What's the big idea? Is it the lone project with obsessive-compulsive designers and a never-ending well of resources; or is it the one product out of a hundred that eked out atop of the sausage race?
What's the big idea? Evans wants to install five small radio beacons at key points in Wales which will transmit low frequency radio signals, the furthest reach of which will invisibly form the five Olympic rings.
What's the Big Idea? Four Centuries of Innovation in Boston
From easy art projects supporting art examples to color pictures of works by famous artists, WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? ACTIVITIES AND ADVENTURES IN ABSTRACT ART is a winning art survey.
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?: Have students choose one of the inventors listed at invent.org.
Miranda's brainwave has already led her to pick up pounds 1,500, after winning the What's the Big Idea? competition run by the Eliot Park Innovation Centre in Nuneaton.
Miranda de Freston scooped pounds 1,500 after winning the What's the Big Idea? competition run by the Eliot Park Innovation Centre (EPIC) in Eliot Park, Barling Way, Nuneaton, after setting up her new website JuggleFrogs.co.uk
* Add teasers to your Web site using BIG graphics and headlines such as "What's the big idea?"
Brain Power: What's the Big Idea? 2,400,000 Years of Inventions takes middle school readers on a whirlwind illustrated tour of some of the most significant breakthroughs in human history.
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? Vitsmart - a water-based drink that's packed with vitamins and minerals - invented by me, Chris Pomeroy, 51, from Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire.