Avoir le bourdon
Meaning: To feel low; to be in a melancholy mood.
Language: French
Literally: To have the bumblebee
Category: Animals
Origin: French has at least four things called a bourdon, any of which could have produced this, which is exactly why it has never been settled. There is the bumblebee, a relative of the honeybee whose flight makes a low droning note — several going at once inside your head is a fair picture of dark thoughts. There is the musical bourdon, the sustained bass drone of a bagpipe or a vielle (hurdy-gurdy), as relentless as a worry you cannot put down. In printing, a bourdon is a word, a phrase, or a whole line accidentally dropped from a text, which would certainly ruin a typesetter's day. And a bourdon is a bell — a very large one with a very deep voice, rung for grave national occasions such as a defeat. Which of the four is the parent, nobody knows.
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- Comme un coq en pâte — Thoroughly pampered; living in complete comfort.
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More French idioms
- Bourré comme un coing — Completely drunk.
- Passer à la casserole — To be killed; to be put through something thoroughly unpleasant; or, said of a woman, to…
- Traîner une casserole — To be trailed by a past scandal that others keep bringing up.
- S'en battre l'œil / S'en tamponner le coquillard — To not care in the slightest.
- C'est dans mes cordes — It is within my competence; I can handle that.
- Filer un mauvais coton — To be going downhill — in health, or in one's situation generally.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
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- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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