Le dindon de la farce
Meaning: The dupe — the victim of a trick who ends up everyone's laughingstock.
Language: French
Literally: The turkey of the stuffing
Category: Animals
Origin: Farce means both a comic interlude and stuffing, and both have been proposed. The medieval-theater reading struggles on dates, since turkeys only reached Europe from Mexico in the 16th century. The likelier story is culinary and slangy: a turkey gets plumé (plucked, hence fleeced), dinde had meant a foolish girl since at least 1771, and a bird served stuffed supplied the pun.
More idioms — Animals
- Montrer patte blanche — To produce the credentials needed to be let in somewhere.
- Être comme l'âne de Buridan — To be so paralyzed between two equally attractive options that you choose neither.
- Rire comme une baleine — To laugh uproariously, with your mouth wide open.
- Un vent à décorner les bœufs — A ferociously strong wind.
- La bave du crapaud n'atteint pas la blanche colombe — Insults from a contemptible source cannot touch the person they target.
- Savoir où le bât blesse — To know exactly where the real difficulty or sore point lies.
More French idioms
- Tenir la dragée haute à quelqu'un — To keep someone waiting before granting what they ask, so they feel the power you hold ov…
- Sucrer les fraises — To have trembling hands; by extension, to be doddering.
- Les Anglais ont débarqué — To have one's period.
- S'envoyer en l'air — To have sex.
- Sacrifier à Vénus — To have sex.
- La langue de bois — Rigid, evasive doublespeak — language cut off from reality that carries a deliberately ri…
From our proverbs
- Know thyself — Self-knowledge and self-awareness are the foundation of all wisdom and right living.
- Waste not, want not — Using things carefully and avoiding waste prevents future need and scarcity.
- Let the punishment fit the crime — Penalties should be proportional and appropriate to the offense committed.
Loading the full interactive collection…