Comme un coq en pâte
Meaning: Thoroughly pampered; living in complete comfort.
Language: French
Literally: Like a rooster in pastry
Category: Animals
Origin: Older French said coq de panier (basket rooster) or coq de bagage (baggage rooster), for the bird carried to market with great care so it would fetch the best price — that care is where the comfort in the phrase comes from. The pâte (pastry) joins it in the 17th century, and the joke turns grim if you follow it through: a bird bound for a pâté en croûte (pâté baked inside a pastry crust) really is indulged and fattened first, then laid on soft pastry and wrapped in a gentle warmth whose purpose it has no idea of. Rooster pâté was never actually common, so what seems to have happened is a crossing of the older expression with en pâte read simply as somewhere soft.
More idioms — Animals
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- Avoir le cafard — To feel depressed or down.
- Poser un lapin — To stand someone up on a date.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
- 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!
More French idioms
- S'en battre l'œil / S'en tamponner le coquillard — To not care in the slightest.
- C'est dans mes cordes — It is within my competence; I can handle that.
- Filer un mauvais coton — To be going downhill — in health, or in one's situation generally.
- Tirer son coup — For a man, to have an orgasm. Vulgar.
- C'est comme pisser dans un violon — A completely pointless effort.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
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