IdiomAnimals
French
FrenchAvoir une araignée au plafond
Meaning: To be a little crazy.
Literally: To have a spider on the ceiling
Example: “Mon oncle parle à ses tomates tous les matins ; je crois qu'il a une araignée au plafond.” — My uncle talks to his tomatoes every morning; I think he's got a screw loose.
English equivalent: To have a screw loose
Origin: The plafond (ceiling) is the top of the skull, and a spider up there suggests a neglected attic, cobwebbed and left untended: the head of someone a little odd. Wiktionnaire dates the phrase to the middle of the 19th century, and Littré records it in the 1860s as avoir une araignée dans le plafond, popular French for someone strange and a little mad.
Equivalents in other languages
Danish: At have rotter på loftet Literally: To have rats in the attic
Finnish: Ei ole kaikki muumit laaksossa Literally: Not all the Moomins are in the valley
German: eine Schraube locker haben Literally: To have a screw loose
English: have a screw loose
More French idioms
- Ramener sa fraise To butt in or show off uninvited.
- Ça m'en touche une sans faire bouger l'autre I couldn't care less; it leaves me utterly indifferent.
- Prendre son pied To take intense pleasure; to have a wonderful time.
- Il pleut comme vache qui pisse It's pouring down — a crude, vivid way to say the rain is coming down extremely hard.
- Mettre la puce à l'oreille To arouse someone's suspicion or make them uneasy about something.
- Sortir de ses gonds To fly into a rage; to lose one's temper suddenly and violently.
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