Les chiens ne font pas des chats
Meaning: Children inevitably resemble their parents.
Language: French
Literally: Dogs do not make cats
Category: Animals
Origin: A blunt statement of heredity: a litter takes after the animal that bore it, and no amount of hoping changes the species. Usually said of a trait the speaker considers unflattering.
More idioms — Animals
- Les chiens aboient et la caravane passe — Criticism from bystanders does not stop those who are getting on with it.
- Ne pas attacher son chien avec des saucisses — To be extremely tight-fisted.
- Un temps de chien — Filthy, miserable weather.
- Donner de la confiture à un cochon — To waste something fine on someone incapable of appreciating it.
- Un corbeau — The anonymous author of poison-pen letters.
- Bayer aux corneilles — To stand around idly, staring into space.
More French idioms
- Mettre les bouchées doubles — To work twice as hard in order to catch up.
- La dive bouteille — Wine, treated with mock reverence.
- Boire le calice jusqu'à la lie — To endure an ordeal all the way to its most humiliating end.
- La cerise sur le gâteau — A final touch that completes something already good — often said sarcastically of a last…
- Ni chair ni poisson — Neither one thing nor the other; impossible to classify.
- Clouer le bec à quelqu'un — To silence someone completely, usually with an unanswerable reply.
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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