Ça va durer trois plombes
Meaning: It's going to take hours.
Language: French
Literally: It's going to last three leads
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The number is free — any will do — so the question is how a plombe came to mean an hour. The trail is not certain, though several lexicographers follow it. The Dictionnaire de Trévoux records that in the 17th century the verb plomber could, rarely, mean to strike. Striking is what jacquemart figures do to bell when they sound the hours, and the weights driving an old clock are themselves called plombs, after what they were made of. Enough lead attached to the sounding of hours to explain why, across the 19th century, slang plomber meant to sound the hour — and from there to plombe for an hour, attested from 1811, is a short step. One thing unsettles it: Gaston Esnault records plombe also meaning a month, and a year, between 1790 and 1850, with no explanation for either.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Avoir la poisse — To have persistent, clinging bad luck.
- Avoir un coup de pompe — To be hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion.
- Ça se bouscule au portillon — There's a crush; also, crudely, of an urgent need to be sick.
- Tirer le portrait — To take someone's photograph.
- S'en moquer comme de l'an quarante — To not care in the slightest.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
More French idioms
- Se chatouiller le poireau / S'astiquer la colonne — To masturbate, said of a man. Vulgar.
- Manger sur le pouce — To eat in a hurry, standing up.
- Cucul la praline — Twee; soppy; embarrassingly naive.
- Pour des prunes — For nothing; in vain.
- 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
- Honour and ease are seldom bed-fellows. — Pursuing comfort and leisure inevitably requires compromising one's principles or reputat…
- Where honour ceaseth, there knowledge decreaseth. — Loss of integrity corrodes the mind's capacity to perceive and retain truth.
- He giveth one knock on the hoop, and another on the barrel. — Inconsistent effort—striking at two separate tasks prevents mastery or completion of eith…
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