Être à l'ouest
Meaning: To be out of it; not with it at all.
Language: French
Literally: To be in the west
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Recent — the end of the 20th century — and most likely an import. English to go west meant to die or be killed around the First World War, and in thieves' slang before that, to be hanged. Crossing the Channel it lost its force, death softening into a general daze. Two other accounts circulate. One puts it in the theater at the start of the 20th century, when the workshops and stages sat mostly in eastern Paris while the actors lived in the west, so a performer went home westward at the end of the night with nothing left in him. The other is unlikely but enjoyable: Professor Tournesol in Tintin is permanently à côté de la plaque, and in Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge he insists his pendulum is telling him to go further and further west.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Sur la paille — Reduced to real poverty.
- Avoir un nom à coucher dehors — To have a name nobody can pronounce or remember.
- Être dans les petits papiers de quelqu'un — To be in someone's good books; to enjoy their favor.
- Faire un pataquès — To make a clumsy verbal slip, or a blunder generally; also, to make an enormous fuss over…
- Patin couffin — And so on and so forth; et cetera.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
More French idioms
- Avoir des oursins dans la poche / Avoir des oursins dans le porte-monnaie — To be tight-fisted.
- Coûter la peau des fesses / Coûter les yeux de la tête — To cost an absolute fortune.
- Rouler un patin / Rouler une galoche — To kiss deeply, with tongue.
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- C'est comme pisser dans un violon — A completely pointless effort.
- Avoir le cafard — To feel depressed or down.
From our proverbs
- Love and a cough cannot be hid. — Genuine affection, like illness, inevitably reveals itself through visible signs despite…
- Hide nothing from thy minister, physician, and lawyer. — Trust these three professionals completely; withholding information from them undermines…
- High winds blow on high hills. — Exposure and prominence invite greater adversity and scrutiny than sheltered, ordinary po…
Loading the full interactive collection…