Avoir le feu sacré
Meaning: To be driven by genuine, burning vocation.
Language: French
Literally: To have the sacred fire
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The sacred fire was the flame the Vestals kept perpetually alight in Rome, whose extinction was a state emergency. The phrase implies something maintained rather than merely felt.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Être tout feu tout flamme — To be full of ardent enthusiasm.
- Faire fi de quelque chose — To scorn something; to dismiss it as beneath notice.
- Des grosses ficelles — Crude, obvious tricks that fool nobody.
- Cousu de fil blanc — So obvious that the deception is plainly visible.
- Mettre le doigt dans l'engrenage — To take a first small step that drags you into something far larger.
- Le dos au feu et le ventre à table — In a state of complete physical contentment.
More French idioms
- Marquer à la culotte — To watch someone so closely they cannot move freely.
- Revoir sa copie — To go back and rework a proposal that has been rejected.
- Ronger son frein — To wait in barely contained impatience.
- Jeter sa gourme — To sow one's wild oats.
- Tirer à hue et à dia — To pull in opposite directions; to work at cross purposes.
- Une grenouille de bénitier — A woman conspicuously and tiresomely devout.
From our proverbs
- Many can pack the cards that cannot play. — Those lacking skill can arrange circumstances to their advantage, yet fail when execution…
- Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. — Small, consistent savings accumulate into substantial wealth without requiring separate e…
- Don't run away with more than you can carry. — Greed beyond capacity leads to dropping everything and gaining nothing.
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