faire la fortune de quelqu'un
Meaning: Bringing great wealth or success to another person.
Language: French
Literally: to make someone's fortune
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Rides entirely on the word fortune, from Latin fortuna — chance, luck, whatever fate happens to hand someone, for better or worse. Once fortune narrowed to mean wealth specifically, faire la fortune de quelqu'un followed as the natural next step: to be the reason behind someone's luck turning decisively good. Writers like Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Maintenon already use the phrase this way, but no source pins down a moment when it was coined — it reads as a straightforward, old extension of the word's own history rather than an idiom with a separate origin story of its own.
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