Ne pas y aller par quatre chemins
Meaning: To come straight to the point.
Language: French
Literally: Not to go by four roads
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Taking four roads to a place you could reach by one is a deliberate detour, so refusing to means going directly. French also has the parallel prendre des chemins de traverse for the opposite habit.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Tous les chemins mènent à Rome — There are many routes to the same result.
- Un chevalier d'industrie — A swindler who lives by his wits at others' expense.
- La cheville ouvrière — The linchpin — the person or thing on which an entire operation turns.
- Une chiffe molle — A spineless person with no will of their own.
- Être au septième ciel — To be in a state of perfect happiness.
- Mettre la clé sous la porte — To shut up shop; to go out of business.
More French idioms
- Ne pas être grand clerc — Not to be much of an expert — used to say that no expertise is needed to see something.
- Déménager à la cloche de bois — To do a moonlight flit, leaving without paying the rent.
- Rater le coche — To miss an opportunity through being too slow.
- Être coiffé au poteau — To be beaten by a hair right at the finish.
- 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.
From our compliments & insults
- Quel râleur / quelle râleuse — You never stop moaning — everything is a complaint, nothing is ever good enough.
- Peau de vache — A mean, difficult, and unpleasant person — tough and unyielding like tanned hide.
- Tu as une cervelle de moineau — You're scatterbrained and forgetful.
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