Fait comme un rat
Meaning: Trapped, with no way out.
Language: French
Literally: Done for like a rat
Category: Animals
Origin: The comparison comme un rat runs from the middle of the 16th century and has never once been flattering — French also had pauvre comme un rat d'église and, closer to this, pris et cuit comme un rat, which is the same idea and is attested in 1725. Fait carries its slang sense of finished, done for: the animal is in the trap, cannot get out, and its fate is no longer in question. The modern wording is first attested in 1932, in Céline. Some suppose it was born in the trenches of the First World War, where men dug in with the rats spent a good deal of their time catching them.
More idioms — Animals
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- Avoir le cafard — To feel depressed or down.
- Poser un lapin — To stand someone up on a date.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
- Da steppt der Bär — It's going to be a great party.
- Ich glaub mein Schwein pfeift — I can't believe it! That's outrageous!
More French idioms
- Le roi n'est pas son cousin — He is beside himself with happiness — and sometimes rather too pleased with himself.
- Travailler pour le roi de Prusse — To work for nothing.
- Se magner la rondelle — To get a move on. Vulgar.
- Rôtir le balai — To live in poverty — and later, to live a life of debauchery.
- Avoir les deux pieds dans le même sabot — To be incapable of acting; to sit there doing nothing.
- Dormir comme un sabot — To sleep very deeply.
From our proverbs
- One man may lead a horse to water, but fifty cannot make him drink. — Individual will cannot be forced by collective pressure; coercion fails where internal mo…
- A hot May makes a fat churchyard. — Warm spring weather accelerates disease spread, increasing mortality among the vulnerable…
- Hold not with the hounds and run with the hare. — Trying to please both sides simultaneously leads to betrayal and failure for everyone inv…
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