Ne pas valoir un pet de lapin
Meaning: To be entirely worthless.
Language: French
Literally: Not to be worth a rabbit's fart
Category: Animals
Origin: The construction picks the most negligible thing available and then halves it. French has a family of these worth-nothing comparisons, and this is the most cheerfully dismissive of them.
More idioms — Animals
- 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.
- À la queue leu leu — In single file, one behind another.
- Avoir la queue entre les jambes — To slink off humiliated.
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 false friends
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- Attendre — Actually means 'to wait for'. J'attends le bus = I'm waiting for the bus. For attend an e…
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