Les dés sont pipés
Meaning: The outcome is rigged in advance.
Language: French
Literally: The dice are loaded
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Piper originally meant to lure birds by imitating their calls with a pipe, and so to deceive. Loaded dice took the verb, and the phrase now covers any contest whose result was arranged before it began.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Au débotté — On the spot, with no time to prepare.
- Les délices de Capoue — Comfort that saps the will to keep fighting.
- Après moi le déluge — What happens once I am gone is not my problem.
- Le démon de midi — The midlife crisis, especially its romantic form.
- Mentir comme un arracheur de dents — To lie brazenly and habitually.
- Dur à la détente — Slow to understand — or, in the other sense, reluctant to part with money.
More French idioms
- Qui paye ses dettes s'enrichit — Settling what you owe leaves you better off than owing it.
- Faire son deuil de quelque chose — To accept that something is lost and give up on it.
- Jeter son dévolu sur quelque chose — To settle firmly on something one intends to have.
- À Dieu ne plaise — God forbid.
- Dieu reconnaîtra les siens — Act without discriminating and let a higher authority sort out the innocent.
- Mon petit doigt m'a dit — I know something you did not expect me to know.
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- Phrase — Actually means 'sentence'. For a short phrase or expression, say une expression.
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