courir après les cotillons
Meaning: To pursue amorous or romantic adventures.
Language: French
Literally: to run after the cotillions
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Cotillions were formal dances associated with courtship and social flirtation; the phrase pictures chasing after those occasions as a metaphor for seeking romantic conquests.
More idioms — Daily Life
- avoir de la tchatche — To be talkative and persuasive, to have the gift of gab.
- remonter plus haut — To begin a story or explanation at an earlier point in time to clarify or better illumina…
- n’avoir qu’à bien se tenir — A warning or threat implying that one must behave properly or face consequences.
- recoller les morceaux — to repair a broken relationship or reconcile after a quarrel.
- brûler ses dernières cartouches — to exhaust one's final resources or use one's last arguments in desperation.
- passer un mauvais quart d’heure — to experience a brief but unpleasant or distressing moment.
More French idioms
- tirer les oreilles — To scold someone harshly or punish them.
- tomber à l’eau — To be canceled or abandoned.
- ne plus savoir où donner de la tête — To be overwhelmed with work or demands.
- avoir les yeux qui sortent de la tête — To stare with eyes wide open in anger or astonishment.
- faire le pont-levis — For a horse to rear up very high.
- faire baiser les verges — To force someone you have mistreated to beg your pardon.
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.