Avoir la poisse
Meaning: To have persistent, clinging bad luck.
Language: French
Literally: To have the pitch
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Poix was pitch — a viscous glue boiled from pine or fir resin, or from wood tar. It produced the verb poisser, to coat with pitch, in the 16th century, and la poisse was drawn from that verb with its figurative sense of bad luck at the start of the 20th. The image is the material itself: pitch is a thing you cannot get off you, which is exactly the complaint being made about the run of luck. Gaston Esnault reports the phrase surfacing first in the slang of racing cyclists.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Avoir un coup de pompe — To be hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion.
- Ça se bouscule au portillon — There's a crush; also, crudely, of an urgent need to be sick.
- Tirer le portrait — To take someone's photograph.
- S'en moquer comme de l'an quarante — To not care in the slightest.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
More French idioms
- Manger sur le pouce — To eat in a hurry, standing up.
- Cucul la praline — Twee; soppy; embarrassingly naive.
- Pour des prunes — For nothing; in vain.
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- C'est comme pisser dans un violon — A completely pointless effort.
- Avoir le cafard — To feel depressed or down.
From our false friends
- Phrase — Actually means 'sentence'. For a short phrase or expression, say une expression.
- Ignorer — Actually means 'to be unaware of' or 'not to know'. J'ignore la réponse = I don't know th…
- Déception — Actually means 'disappointment'. For deception (a trick), say tromperie.
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