Ne pas y aller de main morte
Meaning: To hit hard; to act without the slightest restraint.
Language: French
Literally: Not to go at it with a dead hand
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: The image is literal and rests on a comparison. A hand severed from its arm is a main morte, a dead hand: entirely inert, incapable of so much as swatting a mosquito. Set against that, the hand on the end of a living and none-too-gentle arm is emphatically alive, and can do real damage. That contrast was enough for French to say, from the 17th century, that a man who struck like that was not going about it with a dead hand at all. The second sense — acting brutally, with no restraint, in any context — is just the metaphor extended off the fist.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Bourrer le mou — To feed someone lies; to try to con them.
- Rouler des mécaniques — To swagger; to throw one's weight around.
- Se casser la margoulette — To come a cropper; to take a bad fall.
- Se faire du mouron — To worry oneself.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
More French idioms
- Enculer les mouches — To split hairs; to fuss over trivial detail. Vulgar.
- Être dans la mouise / Être dans la panade / Être dans la purée — To be broke and in real trouble.
- Faire le mariole — To show off; to play the smart aleck.
- Fumer la moquette — To be talking obvious nonsense; to be off one's head.
- Laisser pisser le mérinos — To let things take their course; to wait it out.
- Sauver les meubles — To salvage what matters from a disaster.
From our tongue twisters
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.
- 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.
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