Griller un feu
Meaning: To drive through a traffic light that is red.
Language: French
Literally: To grill a light
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Two figurative shifts meeting. In the early 18th century brûler took the sense 'to pass without stopping', as in brûler les étapes. In the early 20th griller came to mean 'to overtake a vehicle', then merged with that sense of brûler to give 'pass without stopping'. The feu here is a signal light, once literally a fire, not a cooking fire.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Éclairer la lanterne de quelqu'un — To supply the missing detail that lets someone finally understand.
- Outre mesure — Excessively, unreasonably, to an unwarranted degree.
- Une nuit blanche — A sleepless night.
- Une parole d'évangile — An incontestable truth.
- Être aux abonnés absents — To be unreachable, or to fail to show up when needed.
- Accuser réception — To acknowledge that something has been received.
More French idioms
- Être comme l'âne de Buridan — To be so paralyzed between two equally attractive options that you choose neither.
- Rire comme une baleine — To laugh uproariously, with your mouth wide open.
- Un vent à décorner les bœufs — A ferociously strong wind.
- La bave du crapaud n'atteint pas la blanche colombe — Insults from a contemptible source cannot touch the person they target.
- Savoir où le bât blesse — To know exactly where the real difficulty or sore point lies.
- Faire un bœuf — To improvise music together; to hold a jam session.
From our compliments & insults
- Bête comme ses pieds — Really not very bright.
- Avoir un poil dans la main — To be incurably lazy.
- Tête de linotte — A scatterbrain who can't hold a thought.
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