Aux calendes grecques
Meaning: Never — used of something postponed indefinitely.
Language: French
Literally: At the Greek calends
Category: The Absurd
Origin: The calends were the first day of the Roman month and the date debts fell due. The Greek calendar had no calends at all, so a payment promised for them is a payment promised for a date that does not exist. Suetonius attributes the joke to Augustus.
More idioms — The Absurd
- Un cautère sur une jambe de bois — A remedy that is completely useless.
- Se croire sorti de la cuisse de Jupiter — To have an absurdly high opinion of one's own importance.
- Le tonneau des Danaïdes — A hopeless undertaking that consumes everything and is never finished.
- Au diable vauvert — Miles from anywhere; the back of beyond.
- Il n'y a pas le feu au lac — There's no rush.
- Par l'opération du Saint-Esprit — By some unexplained miracle — said sarcastically of something nobody will account for.
More French idioms
- Scier la branche sur laquelle on est assis — To destroy the thing your own position depends on.
- Tomber de Charybde en Scylla — To escape one danger only to meet a worse one.
- Proposer la botte à quelqu'un — To proposition someone sexually.
- Pousser le bouchon un peu loin — To go too far; to overstep.
- Tirer à boulets rouges — To attack someone ferociously and without restraint.
- Sans bourse délier — Without spending a penny.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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