À cor et à cri
Meaning: Loudly and insistently; demanding something at the top of one's voice.
Language: French
Literally: With horn and with cry
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From hunting, where the quarry was pursued with both the horn and the shouting of the field. Cor is the instrument, not the body part, which is why the spelling defeats people.
More idioms — Daily Life
- La corde au cou — Entirely at someone's mercy; forced to submit on any terms.
- Tenir la corde — To be in the best position to win.
- Tenir les cordons du poêle — To be a pallbearer at a funeral, as a mark of honor.
- La corne d'abondance — A source of inexhaustible abundance.
- Un choix cornélien — A dilemma in which every option requires sacrificing something one is bound to.
- À son corps défendant — Reluctantly; against one's own will.
More French idioms
- Corvéable à merci — Available to be worked without limit and without recourse.
- Avoir la cote — To be well regarded; to be popular.
- Sans coup férir — Without any resistance at all; effortlessly.
- Un coup de fil — A telephone call.
- Tomber comme un couperet — To land suddenly and irrevocably, as of bad news.
- Faire la cour à quelqu'un — To court someone romantically.
From our proverbs
- Beggars on horseback will ride to the devil. — Sudden wealth corrupts those unaccustomed to fortune, driving them toward ruin through ex…
- Trash and trumpery is the highway to beggary. — Frivolous spending on worthless goods inevitably leads to financial ruin and poverty.
- Begging is an ill trade on a fast-day. — Alms-giving diminishes on religious fast-days when even the charitable are themselves abs…
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