À beau mentir qui vient de loin
Meaning: Travellers' tales cannot be checked, so they are told without restraint.
Language: French
Literally: He who comes from afar may lie freely
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A medieval proverb from an age when almost nobody could verify a claim about anywhere else. Beau here carries its old sense of having free rein rather than being handsome.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Être à la merci de quelqu'un — To be entirely in someone's power.
- La huitième merveille du monde — Something extraordinary — usually said with irony.
- Paris vaut bien une messe — A principle is worth abandoning if the prize is large enough.
- Une messe basse — A whispered aside between two people in company.
- Je vous le donne en mille — You will never guess.
- Une cour des miracles — A squalid, lawless place.
More French idioms
- Affirmer mordicus — To insist on something absolutely and refuse to be moved.
- Être dans les bras de Morphée — To be fast asleep.
- Prendre au mot — To hold someone to exactly what they said.
- Un moulin à paroles — Someone who talks incessantly.
- Sainte Nitouche — A woman who feigns innocence she does not have.
- Le nerf de la guerre — Money, as the thing without which nothing can be done.
From our proverbs
- Make not the devil blacker than he is. — Don't exaggerate someone's faults or paint them worse than reality warrants.
- He needs must go that the devil drives. — Desperation compels action when circumstances leave no choice but obedience to dire neces…
- One must sometimes hold a candle to the devil. — Pragmatic compromise with unsavory people or situations may be necessary to achieve impor…
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