Ça en jette !
Meaning: To look genuinely impressive.
Language: French
Literally: To throw some / it throws some!
Example: “Avec ses lustres en cristal, cette salle de bal, ça en jette !” — With its crystal chandeliers, this ballroom will knock your socks off!
English equivalent: To knock someone's socks off
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A clipping of jeter un jus or jeter son jus, from the start of the 20th century, meaning to cut a fine figure. The jus is the puzzling part, and Gaston Esnault's reading is that it carries the idea of essence or extract — the best of a thing, the way the juice of a leg of lamb is — so that someone dressing to dazzle is showing the best of himself, or at least trying to make it look that way, and throwing it in the face of everyone watching. The sense started out confined to a person's appearance and widened later to anything striking enough to stop you.
Equivalents in other languages
- English: knock someone's socks off
More idioms — Daily Life
- Con comme la lune — Exceptionally stupid.
- Faire un malheur — To cause a scene with serious consequences — or, oppositely, to be a runaway success.
- Se faire la malle — To clear off; to make a run for it.
- Faire le mariole — To show off; to play the smart aleck.
- Fumer la moquette — To be talking obvious nonsense; to be off one's head.
- Sauver les meubles — To salvage what matters from a disaster.
More French idioms
- Y a pas de lézard ! — No problem; it's all fine.
- Se retrouver une main devant, une main derrière — To be left with absolutely nothing.
- Avoir vu le loup — Said of a young woman, to have had sex; also, in some regions, to be hoarse.
- Ne pas y aller de main morte — To hit hard; to act without the slightest restraint.
- Bourrer le mou — To feed someone lies; to try to con them.
- Enculer les mouches — To split hairs; to fuss over trivial detail. Vulgar.
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