La montagne accouche d'une souris
Meaning: A vast effort or grand announcement produces something trivial.
Language: French
Literally: The mountain gives birth to a mouse
Category: Animals
Origin: From Horace's Ars Poetica — parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus — by way of Aesop and La Fontaine. It is aimed at the announcement more than the result.
More idioms — Animals
- La mouche du coche — Someone who bustles importantly while contributing nothing.
- On n'attrape pas les mouches avec du vinaigre — Gentleness achieves what harshness cannot.
- Prendre la mouche — To take sudden and disproportionate offense.
- Ours mal léché — A boorish, ill-mannered person.
- Un oiseau rare — An exceptional find; someone with an unlikely combination of qualities.
- Les moutons de Panurge — People who follow the crowd without thinking.
More French idioms
- Charger la mule — To pile on far too much; to overcharge someone.
- Ne pas valoir un pet de lapin — To be entirely worthless.
- Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop — You cannot permanently suppress your real character.
- C'est la mer à boire — It is an impossible or endless task — most often used in the negative.
- Faire son miel de quelque chose — To turn something to one's own advantage.
- La substantifique moelle — The essential substance of something, reached only by real effort.
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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