Habiller quelqu'un pour l'hiver

Literally: To dress someone for winter

Example: “Dès qu'elle a quitté la pièce, ses collègues l'ont habillée pour l'hiver.” — As soon as she left the room, her colleagues talked behind her back.

English equivalent: To talk behind someone's back

Origin: The verb has a strange history. Around 1200, abiller — built on bille, a billet of wood — meant to prepare timber, to trim and strip the bark from it. The h arrives in the 15th century, and the pull of habit (clothing) and, to a lesser extent, habile (skilled) completed the shift to the modern sense of dressing someone. Slander is imagined as clothing in French more than once: to speak ill of someone is also to tailler un costard, to cut them a suit. Habiller quelqu'un has carried this sense since the middle of the 18th century, and the pour l'hiver is a simple joke on top of it — winter needs thicker layers, so the gossips pile the calumny on generously, and their subject will certainly not catch cold.