Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles
Meaning: To be outrageously lucky.
Language: French
Literally: To have one's backside lined with noodles
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The link between the backside and luck is ordinary enough in French — avoir du cul is simply to be lucky — but the noodles are another matter, and nobody has settled them. They attach around 1950 in sports commentary, where a goalkeeper saved by the crossbar is said to have his backside lined with noodles. The phrase itself looks older, born in 1930s Marseille: a city given to chronic exaggeration, close to Italy and fond of pasta, where an existing expression for a lucky man could easily pick up a hyperbole like this one. A cruder account also circulates, resting on prison hierarchies and on the slang sense of nouille as penis, but there is no serious source behind it.
More idioms — Daily Life
- En deux coups de cuillère à pot — In no time at all, and with no apparent difficulty.
- Avoir le feu au cul — To be in a tearing hurry; or, to be highly sexually eager.
- Prendre la poudre d'escampette — To clear off in a hurry.
- Que dalle — Nothing at all.
- 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
- Crever la dalle — To be extremely hungry.
- Mi-figue, mi-raisin — Torn between pleasure and displeasure; half in earnest, half in jest.
- 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.
- Poser un lapin — To stand someone up on a date.
From our false friends
- Sensible — Actually means 'sensitive'. For sensible/level-headed, say raisonnable.
- Librairie — Actually means 'bookshop'. A library is une bibliothèque.
- Pain — Actually means 'bread'. The hurting kind of pain is la douleur.
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