From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmattersmatters[plural]SITUATION a situation that you are in or have been describing Maybe some of these suggestions will help to improve matters. Matters can be more easily sorted out once you get to the resort. His long absences didn’t help matters (=made the situation worse).to make matters worse (=used to say that something makes a bad situation worse) The team has lost the last two games and, to make matters worse, two of its best players are injured.to complicate matters further (=used to say that something makes a complicated situation more complicated) To complicate matters further, the law on this issue has been changed. → matter
Examples from the Corpus
to make matters worse• Now we have two wonderful sightscreens, and to make matters worse they have been positioned at either end of the ground.• And to make matters worse I took an instant dislike to the wife.• And to make matters worse, it was a white guy my mum had an affair with.• And, to make matters worse, it cuts off all medical benefits to their spouses and children.• Politically, moreover, Mr Wahid continues to make matters worse for himself.• And a woman doctor, to make matters worse.• So we have been moving to make matters worse by encouraging private insurers to take over Medicare.• The return of Churchill to office threatened to make matters worse. 