Entrer dans le vif du sujet
Meaning: To get to the heart of the matter.
Language: French
Literally: To enter the living part of the subject
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Le vif is living flesh, the sense preserved in couper dans le vif and piqué au vif. Reaching it means passing the preliminaries and touching something that will react.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
- Couper les cheveux en quatre — To over-analyze or split hairs.
- Se regarder le nombril — To be self-centered or narcissistic.
- Tomaten auf den Augen haben — To be oblivious to what's right in front of you.
- Die Daumen drücken — To wish someone good luck (like crossing fingers).
More French idioms
- Une vérité de La Palice / Une lapalissade — A statement so obvious it is comic — a truism.
- Prendre des vessies pour des lanternes — To be grossly deceived about something.
- Être piqué de la tarentule — To be seized by frantic, uncontrollable agitation.
- Tonnerre de Brest ! — An exclamation of astonishment or annoyance.
- En voiture, Simone ! — Right then, off we go.
- Une tempête dans un verre d'eau — A great commotion over something trivial.
From our proverbs
- Fortune knocks once at least at every man's gate. — Opportunity arrives for everyone eventually; recognizing and seizing that moment determin…
- Foul hands befoul all they touch. — Moral corruption spreads through contact, tainting everything and everyone a person influ…
- Four farthings and a thimble make a tailor's pocket jingle. — A tailor's meager earnings remind us that even small accumulations of modest wealth deser…
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