Compter pour du beurre
Meaning: To count for nothing; to be disregarded.
Language: French
Literally: To count for butter
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: Butter was the cheap, taken-for-granted staple against which anything of real worth was measured, so counting for butter is counting for next to nothing. In children's games the phrase marks a player who is present but whose score does not count.
More idioms — Food & Drink
- Mettre du beurre dans les épinards — To improve one's financial situation; to make life a bit more comfortable.
- Beurré comme un p'tit Lu — Thoroughly drunk.
- Un compte d'apothicaire — A needlessly complicated calculation, usually one padded in the biller's favor.
- Tailler une bavette — To have a long, friendly chat.
- Une auberge espagnole — A place or discussion in which you find only what you yourself brought to it.
- La caque sent toujours le hareng — However far you rise, low origins always show through.
More French idioms
- Ne pas être dans son assiette — To feel out of sorts, physically or mentally off-form.
- Se défendre bec et ongles — To fight back with everything you have.
- Connaître bibliquement — To have had sex with someone.
- Se faire de la bile — To worry oneself sick.
- Dans le plus simple appareil — Stark naked.
- L'arbre qui cache la forêt — A conspicuous detail that distracts attention from the larger reality behind it.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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