Crier haro sur le baudet
Meaning: To denounce someone publicly and unanimously.
Language: French
Literally: To cry haro at the donkey
Category: Animals
Origin: Haro was a Norman legal cry that obliged bystanders to seize an offender on the spot. La Fontaine's fable Les Animaux malades de la peste has the assembled beasts cry it at the donkey, the least powerful among them, for the smallest offense.
More idioms — Animals
- Courir plusieurs lièvres à la fois — To pursue too many aims at the same time and catch none.
- Lever un lièvre — To raise an awkward question nobody wanted opened.
- Une tête de linotte — A scatterbrain.
- La part du lion — By far the largest portion, taken by the strongest party.
- Être connu comme le loup blanc — To be known by absolutely everyone.
- Se jeter dans la gueule du loup — To walk straight into obvious danger.
More French idioms
- Un vieux loup de mer — A seasoned old sailor.
- Avoir des yeux de lynx — To have extremely sharp eyesight, or to notice everything.
- Des larmes de crocodile — Insincere grief performed for effect.
- Se laisser tondre la laine sur le dos — To let oneself be exploited without resisting.
- S'entendre comme larrons en foire — To be thick as thieves; to understand one another perfectly.
- À la fortune du pot — Taking potluck; sharing whatever happens to be cooking.
From our proverbs
- There is nothing certain in this life but death and taxes! — Mortality and financial obligation are life's only inevitabilities, making all other plan…
- I'm too old a bird to be caught by chaff. — Experience teaches you to recognize deception disguised as something worthless or trivial.
- The chamber of sickness is the chapel of devotion. — Illness strips away life's distractions, leaving only the essential human need to seek me…
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