Faire le mariole
Meaning: To show off; to play the smart aleck.
Language: French
Literally: To play the mariole
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Mariole turns up in France in the 16th century, first as mariol, and its parentage is unsettled between two accounts. One takes it from Italian marivolo or mariolo, a swindler literally and a crafty type figuratively — and swindler is the sense it first carries in French. The other, in the Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, derives it from a 13th-century mariole, a small image of the Virgin Mary, applied to someone who feigns devotion. Both roads lead back to Marie, which may be the point: marionnette comes from Marion, itself from Marie, and puppets behave with exactly the excess that gets them noticed. The swindler sense is 16th century; the boastful one only 19th. The story crediting a Napoleonic guardsman named Gay Mariole does not survive the dates — the modern sense is attested in 1726.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Fumer la moquette — To be talking obvious nonsense; to be off one's head.
- Sauver les meubles — To salvage what matters from a disaster.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
- Avoir le cul entre deux chaises — To be indecisive, caught between two options.
- Les carottes sont cuites — It's too late, nothing can be done.
More French idioms
- Laisser pisser le mérinos — To let things take their course; to wait it out.
- Rouler des mécaniques — To swagger; to throw one's weight around.
- Se casser la margoulette — To come a cropper; to take a bad fall.
- Se faire du mouron — To worry oneself.
- 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.
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