Mettre à l'index
Meaning: To blacklist something or exclude it from acceptable use.
Language: French
Literally: To put on the index
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Catholic register of forbidden books maintained from 1559 until it was abolished in 1966. Nothing to do with the finger, though the two words share a root.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Un violon d'Ingres — A serious passion pursued outside one's actual profession.
- Un coup de Jarnac — An unexpected decisive stroke, delivered within the rules but not quite sportingly.
- Jeux de mains, jeux de vilains — Horseplay ends badly.
- On ne peut être juge et partie — Nobody may rule on a matter in which they have an interest.
- Un jugement de Salomon — A ruling of great wisdom that exposes the truth by testing it.
- C'est kif-kif — It makes no difference at all.
More French idioms
- Une fine lame — A highly skilled practitioner.
- Sur l'air des lampions — Chanted rhythmically on three insistent notes, as a crowd does.
- Perdre son latin — To be completely baffled by something.
- Se reposer sur ses lauriers — To coast on past achievements instead of continuing to work.
- Au pied de la lettre / À la lettre — Literally, in the strictest sense.
- Entrer en lice — To join a contest or dispute.
From our proverbs
- He may well be contented who needs neither borrow nor flatter. — Financial independence and honest self-reliance free you from degrading dependence on oth…
- People are sometimes better contented full than fasting. — Satisfied material needs reduce complaints and restlessness more effectively than idealis…
- The greatest wealth is contentment with a little. — Modest sufficiency brings more peace than endless pursuit of accumulation.
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