Les moutons de Panurge
Meaning: People who follow the crowd without thinking.
Language: French
Literally: Panurge's sheep
Category: Animals
Origin: From Rabelais's Quart Livre: Panurge buys one sheep from a merchant and throws it overboard, and the whole flock leaps after it, taking the merchant with them. The detail that matters is that the flock had no reason at all.
More idioms — Animals
- Charger la mule — To pile on far too much; to overcharge someone.
- Ne pas valoir un pet de lapin — To be entirely worthless.
- Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop — You cannot permanently suppress your real character.
- Comme un poisson dans l'eau — Completely at ease in one's element.
- Tuer la poule aux œufs d'or — To destroy a source of steady profit out of greed for all of it at once.
- Écrire un poulet à quelqu'un — To send a love letter.
More French idioms
- C'est la mer à boire — It is an impossible or endless task — most often used in the negative.
- Faire son miel de quelque chose — To turn something to one's own advantage.
- La substantifique moelle — The essential substance of something, reached only by real effort.
- On ne fait pas d'omelette sans casser des œufs — Worthwhile results require some damage along the way.
- Refiler la patate chaude — To hand an awkward problem to someone else.
- Dans le pétrin — In serious trouble.
From our proverbs
- A crow is never the whiter for washing herself often. — External efforts cannot change one's fundamental nature or inherent qualities.
- It never goes well when the hen crows. — When women assume traditionally male roles or authority, social disorder follows.
- Cruelty is a tyrant always attended by fear. — Fear haunts the cruel because their victims will seek retribution when opportunity allows.
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