FrenchAvoir le cafard
Meaning: To feel depressed or down.
Literally: To have the cockroach
Example: “Depuis que ses amis sont partis en vacances, elle a le cafard.” — Since her friends left on vacation, she's been feeling down.
English equivalent: To have the blues
Origin: Cafard entered French in the early 16th century as caphar, from Arabic kāfir (unbeliever), and first meant a religious hypocrite: the Académie française's first dictionary (1694) defines it as "hypocrite, bigot." It later also named the cockroach, a creature that hides in dark corners. The sense of gloom is usually credited to Baudelaire, who used cafard alongside spleen in Les Fleurs du mal (1857); dictionaries present this as likely rather than proven. The phrase is said to have spread widely through the trenches of the First World War.
Other ways to say this
- French: Avoir le bourdon Literally: To have the bumblebee
English: have the blues
More French idioms
- Tomber dans les pommes To faint; to pass out.
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez To be getting angry.
- Pédaler dans la semoule To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Raconter des salades To tell lies or tall tales.
- En faire tout un fromage To make a big deal out of nothing.
- Couper les cheveux en quatre To over-analyze or split hairs.
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