Outre mesure
Meaning: Excessively, unreasonably, to an unwarranted degree.
Language: French
Literally: Beyond measure
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Outre here is not the wineskin but Latin ultra, 'further' — the same sense Belgians use in outre-Quiévrain for what lies past the border town. The phrase marks a limit actually crossed, not merely approached, which is why it means excessivement rather than extrêmement.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Une nuit blanche — A sleepless night.
- Une parole d'évangile — An incontestable truth.
- Être aux abonnés absents — To be unreachable, or to fail to show up when needed.
- Accuser réception — To acknowledge that something has been received.
- Par acquit de conscience — To do something merely to be sure, so as to leave nothing on your conscience.
- La perfide Albion — A hostile nickname for England, cast as habitually treacherous in its diplomacy.
More French idioms
- Être comme l'âne de Buridan — To be so paralyzed between two equally attractive options that you choose neither.
- Rire comme une baleine — To laugh uproariously, with your mouth wide open.
- Un vent à décorner les bœufs — A ferociously strong wind.
- La bave du crapaud n'atteint pas la blanche colombe — Insults from a contemptible source cannot touch the person they target.
- Savoir où le bât blesse — To know exactly where the real difficulty or sore point lies.
- Faire un bœuf — To improvise music together; to hold a jam session.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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