Le revers de la médaille
Meaning: The unwelcome other side of something good.
Language: French
Literally: The reverse of the medal
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A struck medal carries the portrait on one face and something quite different on the other, and both are the same object. The phrase insists the drawback is not separable from the advantage.
More idioms — Daily Life
- À beau mentir qui vient de loin — Travellers' tales cannot be checked, so they are told without restraint.
- Être à la merci de quelqu'un — To be entirely in someone's power.
- La huitième merveille du monde — Something extraordinary — usually said with irony.
- Paris vaut bien une messe — A principle is worth abandoning if the prize is large enough.
- Une messe basse — A whispered aside between two people in company.
- Je vous le donne en mille — You will never guess.
More French idioms
- Une cour des miracles — A squalid, lawless place.
- Affirmer mordicus — To insist on something absolutely and refuse to be moved.
- Être dans les bras de Morphée — To be fast asleep.
- Prendre au mot — To hold someone to exactly what they said.
- Un moulin à paroles — Someone who talks incessantly.
- Sainte Nitouche — A woman who feigns innocence she does not have.
From our tongue twisters
- 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.
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
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