Mettre du beurre dans les épinards
Meaning: To improve one's financial situation; to make life a bit more comfortable.
Language: French
Literally: To put butter in the spinach
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: Spinach was plain, cheap fare; butter was the small luxury that made it palatable. Adding it stands for the modest extra income that lifts an ordinary living just above bare necessity.
More idioms — Food & Drink
- Beurré comme un p'tit Lu — Thoroughly drunk.
- Un compte d'apothicaire — A needlessly complicated calculation, usually one padded in the biller's favor.
- Tailler une bavette — To have a long, friendly chat.
- Une auberge espagnole — A place or discussion in which you find only what you yourself brought to it.
- La caque sent toujours le hareng — However far you rise, low origins always show through.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
More French idioms
- Ne pas être dans son assiette — To feel out of sorts, physically or mentally off-form.
- Se défendre bec et ongles — To fight back with everything you have.
- Connaître bibliquement — To have had sex with someone.
- Se faire de la bile — To worry oneself sick.
- Dans le plus simple appareil — Stark naked.
- L'arbre qui cache la forêt — A conspicuous detail that distracts attention from the larger reality behind it.
From our tongue twisters
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
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