FrenchAvoir les sangs tournés
Meaning: To be profoundly shocked or horrified.
Literally: To have one's bloods turned
Example: “En voyant l'accident, j'ai eu les sangs tournés.” — When I saw the accident, my blood ran cold.
English equivalent: One's blood runs cold
Equivalents in other languages
English: one's blood runs cold
Origin: French has long described a shock as something done to the blood: Littré records vous me faites tourner le sang (you make my blood turn) for causing someone painful emotions. The plural les sangs is popular and regional French, which the grammarian Féraud already condemned in 1787, insisting one always says le sang, never les sangs, and Maupassant puts it in the mouth of a Norman peasant mother in his story Boitelle (1889).
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