Entretenir une danseuse
Meaning: To maintain a costly indulgence that serves no purpose.
Language: French
Literally: To keep a dancer
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Wealthy 19th-century men kept ballet dancers from the Paris Opéra as expensive public ornaments. The phrase is now used of loss-making vanity projects, especially corporate and political ones.
More idioms — Daily Life
- À l'usage du Dauphin — Expurgated; censored for delicate sensibilities.
- Les dés sont pipés — The outcome is rigged in advance.
- Au débotté — On the spot, with no time to prepare.
- Les délices de Capoue — Comfort that saps the will to keep fighting.
- Après moi le déluge — What happens once I am gone is not my problem.
- Le démon de midi — The midlife crisis, especially its romantic form.
More French idioms
- Mentir comme un arracheur de dents — To lie brazenly and habitually.
- Dur à la détente — Slow to understand — or, in the other sense, reluctant to part with money.
- Qui paye ses dettes s'enrichit — Settling what you owe leaves you better off than owing it.
- Faire son deuil de quelque chose — To accept that something is lost and give up on it.
- Jeter son dévolu sur quelque chose — To settle firmly on something one intends to have.
- À Dieu ne plaise — God forbid.
From our proverbs
- Tis a blot on his escutcheon. — A single shameful act permanently mars a person's reputation and family honor, like a sta…
- He who blusters without reason has most reason to bluster. — Empty boasting reveals deep insecurity; the loudest voices often mask the weakest positio…
- Whether you boil snow or pound it, you will have but water from it. — Effort cannot change the fundamental nature of something inherently worthless or insignif…
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