Des mesures draconiennes
Meaning: Punishingly severe rules.
Language: French
Literally: Draconian measures
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From Draco, who codified Athenian law around 621 BC and prescribed death for a remarkable proportion of offenses. A later Athenian said his laws were written in blood rather than ink.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Péter une durite — To lose one's temper completely.
- À l'eau de rose — Insipidly sentimental, especially of fiction.
- L'échapper belle — To have a narrow escape.
- Faire l'école buissonnière — To play truant.
- Ne pas tarir d'éloges — To praise someone endlessly.
- Qui trop embrasse mal étreint — Attempting too many things at once means doing none of them properly.
More French idioms
- Une éminence grise — The unofficial power behind a public figure.
- À l'emporte-pièce — Trenchant and uncompromising, of a remark or judgment.
- Un enfant de la balle — Someone raised in the trade they now practice.
- L'enfer est pavé de bonnes intentions — Meaning well counts for nothing without acting well.
- Envers et contre tous — In defiance of universal opposition.
- À l'envi — Vying with one another; each trying to outdo the rest.
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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