Casser les pieds à quelqu'un
Meaning: To annoy or bore someone greatly.
Language: French
Literally: To break someone's feet
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Pairing casser with a body part to mean annoying someone goes back to the start of the 12th century, but feet only enter the picture at the end of the 19th, and by way of a detour through ears: casser les oreilles (to deafen someone with noise or chatter) comes first, and casser les pieds takes over the same job. Walking was simply how people got anywhere, so sore or damaged feet meant every errand became a small ordeal — which is exactly the friction an insistent, tiresome person creates without laying a hand on you.
Equivalents in other languages
- Hindi: नाक में दम करना (naak mein dam karna) — literally: To put breath into someone's nose
- German: Jemandem auf den Keks gehen — literally: To go on someone's biscuit
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Avoir un poil dans la main — To be extremely lazy.
- Prendre ses jambes à son cou — To run away very fast.
- Se lever du pied gauche — To wake up in a bad mood.
- Mettre les pieds dans le plat — To put one's foot in it; to say something awkward or blunt.
- avoir des fourmis — Experiencing a tingling or prickling sensation in a limb losing circulation.
- avoir un chat dans la gorge — Having difficulty speaking due to hoarseness or a sore throat.
More French idioms
- Avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre — To want to have it both ways.
- Noyer le poisson — To confuse the issue deliberately; to dodge a question.
- Chercher midi à quatorze heures — To overcomplicate a simple matter.
- Appeler un chat un chat — To call things by their proper name; to speak bluntly.
- Donner sa langue au chat — To give up trying to guess the answer.
- C'est la croix et la bannière — It is an enormous effort or ordeal.
From our compliments & insults
- Espèce de patate — You dim bulb — a potato being the very picture of inert, unthinking stodginess.
- Quel râleur / quelle râleuse — You never stop moaning — everything is a complaint, nothing is ever good enough.
- Peau de vache — A mean, difficult, and unpleasant person — tough and unyielding like tanned hide.