Le libre arbitre
Meaning: Free will — the capacity to choose independently of compulsion.
Language: French
Literally: Free arbitration
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From Latin liberum arbitrium, arbitrium meaning judgment or decision rather than arbitration in the modern sense. The term was fixed by Augustine and became central to the Reformation quarrel over whether the will is free at all.
More idioms — Daily Life
- L'argent n'a pas d'odeur — Money is money regardless of how disreputably it was earned.
- Une Arlésienne — A person or thing endlessly talked about but who never actually appears.
- Signer son arrêt de mort — To take an action that guarantees your own downfall.
- Un homme de l'art — A qualified professional, especially a physician.
- C'est du grand art — That is masterfully done.
- L'enfance de l'art — Utterly elementary; child's play.
More French idioms
- À l'article de la mort — At the very point of dying.
- De bon augure — A promising sign; its opposite, de mauvais augure, means ominous.
- Mesurer à l'aune de — To judge something by a particular standard.
- L'avocat du diable — Someone who argues a position they do not hold in order to test it.
- Dans tous les azimuts — In every direction at once; scattered and unfocused.
- Une tour de Babel — A place of hopeless confusion, especially one where nobody speaks the same language.
From our tongue twisters
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.
- Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? — A merciless duel between 'ch' and 's'.
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès. — An 's' / 'si' minefield.
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