Être au taquet

Literally: To be at the cleat

Example: “À une semaine du lancement, toute l'équipe est au taquet.” — A week before the launch, the whole team is firing on all cylinders.

English equivalent: Firing on all cylinders

Origin: A taquet is whatever stops a thing from going further. The word has meant a block of wood wedged against a door since the 15th century, a shim under a wobbling cabinet since the 19th, a cleat holding a rope or a sail at a fixed tension since the 17th, and the metal stop that halted a typewriter carriage at the end of its travel. Every one of them exists to say no further. So the kid doing 55 through town on a bored-out 49cc moped has the throttle au taquet, screwed hard against its stop, and the colleague who cannot take on one more thing is au taquet in exactly the same way. Climbers use it for the moment before the fall, on a route above your grade or past the end of your strength — still a limit, only now on the wrong side of it. The two senses are one idea seen from either end: pressed to the maximum, and unable to exceed it.