Mordre la poussière
Meaning: To be defeated; to fall.
Language: French
Literally: To bite the dust
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Homer has fallen warriors seize the earth in their teeth, and the phrase reached French and English through translations of the Iliad. It arrived in English before the westerns that now own it.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Avoir plus d'un tour dans son sac — To have resources in reserve.
- Vider son sac — To say everything one has been holding back.
- À tue-tête — At the top of one's voice.
- Dire ses quatre vérités à quelqu'un — To tell someone exactly what is wrong with them.
- Avoir la main verte — To have a gift for growing plants.
- Entrer dans le vif du sujet — To get to the heart of the matter.
More French idioms
- De la poudre de perlimpinpin — A worthless remedy sold with great confidence.
- Un lit de Procuste — A standard imposed regardless of what it does to the thing being measured.
- Le rocher de Sisyphe — A labor that must be repeated forever and never completes.
- Le supplice de Tantale — Having what one wants permanently in sight and permanently out of reach.
- Une solution de continuité — A break or gap — not, despite appearances, a solution to anything.
- Demain, on rase gratis — A promise perpetually postponed.
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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