Il n'y a pas un chat
Meaning: There is nobody around at all.
Language: French
Literally: There isn't a cat
Category: Animals
Origin: The cat stands as the least significant living thing that might plausibly be present, so its absence marks total emptiness. The construction is the same as English 'not a soul'.
More idioms — Animals
- À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents — Do not find fault with a gift.
- Monter sur ses grands chevaux — To take offense and react with indignant superiority.
- Un cheval de Troie — A gift or arrangement that conceals a hostile purpose.
- C'est le chien de Jean de Nivelle — Said of someone who makes himself scarce precisely when he is called.
- Les chiens ne font pas des chats — Children inevitably resemble their parents.
- Les chiens aboient et la caravane passe — Criticism from bystanders does not stop those who are getting on with it.
More French idioms
- Ne pas attacher son chien avec des saucisses — To be extremely tight-fisted.
- Un temps de chien — Filthy, miserable weather.
- Mettre les bouchées doubles — To work twice as hard in order to catch up.
- La dive bouteille — Wine, treated with mock reverence.
- Boire le calice jusqu'à la lie — To endure an ordeal all the way to its most humiliating end.
- La cerise sur le gâteau — A final touch that completes something already good — often said sarcastically of a last…
From our tongue twisters
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
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