Chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin
Meaning: To search for something you have almost no chance of finding, because the thing is tiny and the place holding it is vast.
Language: French
Literally: To look for a needle in a bundle of hay
Category: The Absurd
Origin: Botte here is a bundle, not a boot. It is the same word English borrowed as the bottle of hay that older English versions of this expression used, so the French wording preserves the original image while the English one drifted to haystack.
Equivalents in other languages
- English: Look for a needle in a haystack
- Spanish: Buscar una aguja en un pajar — literally: To look for a needle in a haystack
- German: Eine Nadel im Heuhaufen suchen — literally: To search for a needle in the haystack
More idioms — The Absurd
- 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.
- Da steppt der Bär — It's going to be a great party.
- Ich glaub mein Schwein pfeift — I can't believe it! That's outrageous!
- Estar como una cabra — To be completely crazy.
- Fare il diavolo a quattro — To raise absolute hell; to cause a huge scene.
More French idioms
- Avoir le bourdon — To feel low; to be in a melancholy mood.
- Bourré comme un coing — Completely drunk.
- Un chaud lapin — A man with a voracious appetite for sex.
- Faire devenir chèvre — To drive someone up the wall.
- Passer à la casserole — To be killed; to be put through something thoroughly unpleasant; or, said of a woman, to…
- Traîner une casserole — To be trailed by a past scandal that others keep bringing up.
From our proverbs
- No man knows better what good is than he that has an endured evil. — Suffering teaches appreciation; adversity reveals the true value of comfort and peace.
- Though good be good yet better carries it. — Excellence demands continuous improvement; settling for mere goodness invites complacency…
- When good cheer is lacking our friends will be packing. — Fair-weather friends abandon you when prosperity fades and hardship arrives.
Loading the full interactive collection…