FrenchFaire un couac
Meaning: Making an embarrassing mistake or producing a discordant sound.
Literally: To make a squawk
Example: “Il y a eu un couac dans l'organisation : personne n'avait réservé la salle.” — There was a hitch in the planning: nobody had booked the room.
English equivalent: To hit a snag
Origin: Couac is 15th-century onomatopoeia, coac, imitating a duck's cry — the word survives as one of the duck's familiar nicknames — and orchestra slang from the following century borrowed the same sound for the ugly, unplanned squawk a clarinet or oboe produces when a reed catches wrong or a note cracks. A singer or a musician who fait un couac has, for one unplanned instant, sounded exactly like the bird the word imitates. The figurative sense — any sudden, embarrassing false note in an otherwise smooth situation — simply carries the same sound outside the concert hall.
Equivalents in other languages
English: hit a snag
More French idioms
- Quand les poules auront des dents Never — it describes something that will simply never happen.
- Il y a anguille sous roche Something suspicious is quietly going on beneath the surface.
- Ménager la chèvre et le chou To try to please both sides of a conflict without committing to either.
- Avoir la gueule de bois To be hungover.
- Filer à l'anglaise To leave discreetly without saying goodbye.
- Se mettre sur son trente-et-un To dress up in your very best clothes.
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