La réponse du berger à la bergère
Meaning: The retort that ends an argument for good; also, giving someone exactly what they gave you.
Language: French
Literally: The shepherd's reply to the shepherdess
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From the 17th-century fashion for pastorals, in which berger and bergère took on the figurative senses of lover and mistress. The phrase is usually traced to Racan's Les Bergeries, whose shepherd-and-shepherdess dialogues give the shepherd the last word. The second sense is 20th-century and rests on the literal reading instead: two people at the same trade know exactly how to do to each other what was done to them.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Know where the shoe pinches — To know exactly where the real trouble lies.
- C'est dans mes cordes — It is within my competence; I can handle that.
- Filer un mauvais coton — To be going downhill — in health, or in one's situation generally.
- Tirer son coup — For a man, to have an orgasm. Vulgar.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
More French idioms
- Couler un bronze — To defecate.
- Coûter un bras — To be outrageously expensive.
- Se cailler les miches — To be freezing cold.
- Chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin — To search for something you have almost no chance of finding, because the thing is tiny a…
- Avoir le bourdon — To feel low; to be in a melancholy mood.
- Bourré comme un coing — Completely drunk.
From our proverbs
- When God wills, all winds bring rain. — Divine providence operates beyond human understanding; circumstances we cannot control ma…
- A man may buy gold too dear. — Excessive price paid for something, however valuable, can make the acquisition a poor bar…
- Gold goes in at any gate, except Heaven's. — Wealth opens worldly doors but cannot purchase spiritual salvation or divine favor.
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