Avoir les deux pieds dans le même sabot
Meaning: To be incapable of acting; to sit there doing nothing.
Language: French
Literally: To have both feet in the same clog
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Try it and the expression explains itself: feet are made to move one after the other, and both crammed into a single clog leave you unable to do anything but topple over. From there it is a short step to the second sense, since a man who cannot act looks, to anyone who does not know why, exactly like a man who will not. Clogs are ancient but the phrase is not — the first written traces are only at the end of the 19th century. It is most often heard in the negative, where it turns into praise: il est loin d'avoir les deux pieds dans le même sabot means quite the opposite, a man of energy.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
- Couper les cheveux en quatre — To over-analyze or split hairs.
- Se regarder le nombril — To be self-centered or narcissistic.
- Tomaten auf den Augen haben — To be oblivious to what's right in front of you.
- Die Daumen drücken — To wish someone good luck (like crossing fingers).
More French idioms
- Dormir comme un sabot — To sleep very deeply.
- Balancer la sauce / Envoyer la sauce — To ejaculate; to fire a burst from a weapon; or to open the throttle. Vulgar in the first…
- Tout schuss — Flat out; or straight down, without deviating.
- Chanter comme une seringue / Chanter comme une casserole — To sing badly out of tune.
- 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.
From our proverbs
- A noble housekeeper needs no doors. — Trustworthy character makes locks unnecessary; integrity itself secures what matters most.
- The stillest humours are always the worst. — Quiet resentment festers dangerously; unexpressed anger poses greater threat than obvious…
- It is all one a hundred years hence. — Mortality makes present troubles insignificant; time erases all distinctions between impo…
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