Ne pas attacher son chien avec des saucisses
Meaning: To be extremely tight-fisted.
Language: French
Literally: Not to tie one's dog up with sausages
Category: Animals
Origin: The measure of stinginess is refusing an extravagance so absurd that nobody would attempt it anyway — a leash made of food the dog would simply eat. The joke is that the miser is being judged against an impossible standard and still failing it.
More idioms — Animals
- Un temps de chien — Filthy, miserable weather.
- Donner de la confiture à un cochon — To waste something fine on someone incapable of appreciating it.
- Un corbeau — The anonymous author of poison-pen letters.
- Bayer aux corneilles — To stand around idly, staring into space.
- Un panier de crabes — A group whose members constantly undermine one another.
- Chat échaudé craint l'eau froide — One bad experience makes you wary even where there is no danger.
More French idioms
- Mettre les bouchées doubles — To work twice as hard in order to catch up.
- La dive bouteille — Wine, treated with mock reverence.
- Boire le calice jusqu'à la lie — To endure an ordeal all the way to its most humiliating end.
- La cerise sur le gâteau — A final touch that completes something already good — often said sarcastically of a last…
- Ni chair ni poisson — Neither one thing nor the other; impossible to classify.
- Clouer le bec à quelqu'un — To silence someone completely, usually with an unanswerable reply.
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