L'enfance de l'art
Meaning: Utterly elementary; child's play.
Language: French
Literally: The infancy of the art
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The infancy of a discipline is its first and crudest stage, so anything belonging to it requires no skill at all. Note that the sense inverts the English 'in its infancy', which describes something undeveloped rather than easy.
More idioms — Daily Life
- 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.
More French idioms
- Plier bagage — To pack up and clear off, usually in a hurry.
- Ça fait un bail — It has been ages.
- Un baiser de Judas — A show of affection that conceals a betrayal.
- La balle est dans votre camp — It is your turn to act; the decision now rests with you.
- Convoquer le ban et l'arrière-ban — To call in absolutely everyone available.
- Une république bananière — A corrupt, unstable state run for the benefit of a few private interests.
From our proverbs
- If you mess with the bull, you get the horns — Confronting a dangerous opponent directly invites predictable retaliation.
- Ill-gotten gains never prosper — Money obtained through dishonesty ultimately fails to generate lasting wealth or security.
- In unity, there is strength — Individual efforts pale against coordinated action; collective power overcomes obstacles…
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