Habiller quelqu'un pour l'hiver
Meaning: To run someone down, usually behind their back.
Language: French
Literally: To dress someone for winter
Category: Daily Life
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.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Mettre le holà — To put a stop to something.
- Rire jaune — To force a laugh; to laugh while plainly not amused.
- En jeter / Ça en jette ! — To look genuinely impressive.
- Con comme la lune — Exceptionally stupid.
- Faire un malheur — To cause a scene with serious consequences — or, oppositely, to be a runaway success.
- Se faire la malle — To clear off; to make a run for it.
More French idioms
- Ça me fait une belle jambe — That is no use to me whatsoever.
- Y a pas de lézard ! — No problem; it's all fine.
- Se retrouver une main devant, une main derrière — To be left with absolutely nothing.
- Avoir vu le loup — Said of a young woman, to have had sex; also, in some regions, to be hoarse.
- Ne pas y aller de main morte — To hit hard; to act without the slightest restraint.
- Bourrer le mou — To feed someone lies; to try to con them.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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