Avaler des couleuvres
Meaning: To put up with insults or humiliations without being able to protest; also, to swallow any claim you are told.
Language: French
Literally: To swallow grass snakes
Category: Animals
Origin: Furetière records the first sense in the 17th century, and the second grew out of it — there is little distance between someone who must accept what is inflicted on them without protest and someone who accepts whatever they are told without objection. Two origins compete. The culinary one is repeated most often: when eels were ordinary river food, a mischievous or vengeful host might slip a couleuvre (grass snake) in among them, the two being hard to tell apart, and the guest either failed to notice — proving they would swallow anything — or noticed and said nothing rather than cause a scene. The likelier one is purely verbal. Couleuvre once also meant a treacherous insinuation, the kind of remark that is hard to answer and simply has to be borne; that sense leaned on the Devil's own serpent in Eden, and was reinforced by confusion with couleur (color), which from the 15th to the 17th century meant a false appearance — a good coat of paint hiding the flaws underneath.
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- Comme un coq en pâte — Thoroughly pampered; living in complete comfort.
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
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- S'en battre l'œil / S'en tamponner le coquillard — To not care in the slightest.
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