Les carottes sont cuites

Literally: The carrots are cooked

Example: “Il reste deux minutes et on perd trois à zéro : les carottes sont cuites.” — Two minutes left and we're losing three to nothing: it's all over.

English equivalent: That ship has sailed

Origin: Carrots were a poor person's vegetable through the 17th and 18th centuries — ideally cooked alongside meat, but eaten alone whenever meat wasn't to be had — and that low standing is what powers the phrase. An older form, avoir ses carottes cuites, is attested from 1878 meaning to be at death's door, one's situation as finished and unglamorous as a cooked carrot. The modern wording, meaning the game is up rather than specifically that someone is dying, grew out of it. Its most famous outing came during the Second World War, when the BBC's French broadcasts used les carottes sont cuites, je répète, les carottes sont cuites as a coded signal to resistance networks that an operation was about to begin.