Avoir maille à partir avec quelqu'un
Meaning: To have a quarrel or a bone to pick with someone.
Language: French
Literally: To have a maille to divide with someone
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Both words are traps: a maille was the smallest medieval coin, half a denier, and partir here means to divide, not to leave. Two people with a single maille between them cannot split it, so a dispute is guaranteed.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Faire main basse sur quelque chose — To seize something wholesale.
- S'en laver les mains — To disclaim all responsibility for an outcome.
- Tout le saint-frusquin — The whole lot; everything one owns.
- Manu militari — By force; with physical compulsion.
- Faire le matamore — To swagger and bluster without the courage to back it up.
- Vendre la mèche — To give away a secret or a plan.
More French idioms
- Des yeux de merlan frit — A soppy, languishing look.
- Payer en monnaie de singe — To pay with worthless promises instead of money.
- La montagne accouche d'une souris — A vast effort or grand announcement produces something trivial.
- La mouche du coche — Someone who bustles importantly while contributing nothing.
- On n'attrape pas les mouches avec du vinaigre — Gentleness achieves what harshness cannot.
- Prendre la mouche — To take sudden and disproportionate offense.
From our untranslatable words
- L'esprit de l'escalier — Thinking of the perfect comeback only after the moment has passed — on your way down the…
- Terroir — The unique character that a place — its soil, climate and tradition — gives to a wine or…
- Râler — To complain and grumble with a certain national flair — a beloved French pastime.
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