À la queue leu leu
Meaning: In single file, one behind another.
Language: French
Literally: In wolf-wolf tail
Category: Animals
Origin: Leu is the Old French for wolf, before loup replaced it, and the phrase describes wolves traveling nose to tail. The doubling is a fossil of a construction meaning tail-of-wolf-wolf, which is why it reads as nonsense now.
More idioms — Animals
- Avoir la queue entre les jambes — To slink off humiliated.
- Manger à tous les râteliers — To take advantage from all sides at once, with no loyalty to any.
- Une bête de somme — Someone worked relentlessly at heavy, thankless labor.
- Se faire prendre pour un pigeon — To be duped as an easy mark.
- Avoir les portugaises ensablées — To be hard of hearing.
- Laid comme un pou — Extremely ugly.
More French idioms
- Le plancher des vaches — Dry land, as seen from the sea.
- Secouer comme un prunier — To shake someone violently.
- Le marchand de sable est passé — The children are getting sleepy.
- Un pique-nique — A meal eaten outdoors to which everyone contributes.
- Cracher dans la soupe — To disparage the thing that sustains you.
- Trempé comme une soupe — Drenched to the skin.
From our false friends
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