Avaler des couleuvres

Literally: To swallow grass snakes

Example: “Pour garder son poste, elle a dû avaler bien des couleuvres.” — To keep her job, she had to grin and bear a lot of humiliations.

English equivalent: To grin and bear it

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.