Éclairer la lanterne de quelqu'un
Meaning: To supply the missing detail that lets someone finally understand.
Language: French
Literally: To light someone's lantern
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From Florian's 18th-century fable 'Le Singe qui montre la lanterne magique', in which a monkey grandly presents a magic-lantern show to an audience sitting in pitch darkness, straining to see. He had forgotten just one thing: to light his lantern. The phrase first meant omitting the essential point, then shifted to supplying it.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Outre mesure — Excessively, unreasonably, to an unwarranted degree.
- Une nuit blanche — A sleepless night.
- Une parole d'évangile — An incontestable truth.
- Être aux abonnés absents — To be unreachable, or to fail to show up when needed.
- Accuser réception — To acknowledge that something has been received.
- Par acquit de conscience — To do something merely to be sure, so as to leave nothing on your conscience.
More French idioms
- Être comme l'âne de Buridan — To be so paralyzed between two equally attractive options that you choose neither.
- Rire comme une baleine — To laugh uproariously, with your mouth wide open.
- Un vent à décorner les bœufs — A ferociously strong wind.
- La bave du crapaud n'atteint pas la blanche colombe — Insults from a contemptible source cannot touch the person they target.
- Savoir où le bât blesse — To know exactly where the real difficulty or sore point lies.
- Faire un bœuf — To improvise music together; to hold a jam session.
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