Avoir la tête dans les nuages
Meaning: To be a daydreamer; out of touch with reality.
Language: French
Literally: To have one's head in the clouds
Category: Nature
Origin: Genuinely hard to pin down. Clouds and the sky generally have carried associations with elevated or divine states of mind across a great many cultures, and medieval writers already reached for celestial imagery to describe minds that had wandered off from the everyday — but tracing the specific French wording back to a first attestation is not something any source manages convincingly. Traces of the image turn up as early as the 16th century, and the phrase in something like its current form was in wide use by the 18th, which is as precise as the record gets: a head placed somewhere its owner's feet plainly are not, standing in for a mind that has drifted the same distance from what's actually in front of it.
Equivalents in other languages
- Spanish: estar en la luna de Valencia — literally: to be in the moon of Valencia
- Serbian: Пасти с Марса (Pasti s Marsa) — literally: To fall from Mars
- Galician: Estar nas verzas — literally: To be in the cabbages
- English: have one's head in the clouds
More idioms — Nature
- Jeter de l'huile sur le feu — To make a bad situation worse.
- faire la pluie et le beau temps — Having complete control over a situation or someone's fate.
- être une girouette — Being inconsistent, constantly changing opinions or allegiances.
- estar más claro que el agua — Something is obvious, evident, and beyond any doubt or confusion.
- come hell or high water — no matter what obstacles arise; with absolute determination.
- up the creek without a paddle — in a difficult situation without means to escape.
More French idioms
- Casser du sucre sur le dos de quelqu'un — To talk behind someone's back.
- Faire d'une pierre deux coups — To kill two birds with one stone.
- Faire d'une mouche un éléphant — To make a mountain out of a molehill; to exaggerate wildly.
- avoir des fourmis — Experiencing a tingling or prickling sensation in a limb losing circulation.
- être sur des charbons ardents — Being extremely anxious or impatient about something.
- avoir un chat dans la gorge — Having difficulty speaking due to hoarseness or a sore throat.
From our compliments & insults
- Tu es un as — You're brilliant at what you do — the very best.
- Tu as de la répartie — You're brilliantly quick-witted — always ready with the perfect comeback.
- T'as pas inventé le fil à couper le beurre — You're not exactly a genius — the wire to cut butter is about the most obvious tool imagi…