A face din țânțar armăsar
Meaning: To exaggerate something enormously.
Language: Romanian
Literally: To make a stallion out of a mosquito
Category: Animals
Origin: A Romanian rhyming image (țânțar/armăsar) of blowing the tiniest thing up into something huge.
Equivalents in other languages
- Russian: Делать из мухи слона (Delat' iz mukhi slona) — literally: To make an elephant out of a fly
- French: Faire d'une mouche un éléphant — literally: To make an elephant out of a fly
- Arabic: يعمل من الحبة قبة (Ya'mal min al-ḥabba qubba) — literally: To build a dome out of a seed
- Czech: Dělat z komára velblouda — literally: To make a camel out of a mosquito
- Turkish: Pireyi deve yapmak — literally: To make a camel out of a flea
More idioms — Animals
- A tăcea ca porcul în păpușoi — To keep guiltily quiet.
- الجمل ما يشوف عوجة رقبته (Al-jamal mā yshūf 'awjat raqabatuh) — People are blind to their own faults.
- आ बैल मुझे मार (Ā bail mujhe mār) — To deliberately invite trouble upon yourself.
- گربه را دم حجله کشتن (gorbe rā dam-e hejle koshtan) — To assert authority firmly from the very start.
- จับปลาสองมือ — To chase two goals at once and risk losing both.
- Cõng rắn cắn gà nhà — To bring in an outsider who harms your own people.
More Romanian idioms
- A umbla cu cioara vopsită — To try to deceive people with falsehoods.
- A se face luntre și punte — To do absolutely everything to help.
- A freca menta — To waste time; to loaf around doing nothing useful.
- A-i pica fisa — To finally understand something.
- A se uita ca pisica în calendar — To stare blankly, understanding nothing.
- A tăia frunză la câini — To do pointless work; to idle away the day.
From our tongue twisters
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- Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami. — Six words, almost no vowels — a single noun phrase that non-Polish speakers find impossib…
- 四是四，十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十。(Sì shì sì, shí shì shí, shísì shì shísì, sìshí shì sìshí.) — A pure sì/shí tone drill — the two numbers are near-identical and the tones swap each tim…