Passer l'arme à gauche
Meaning: To die.
Language: French
Literally: To pass the weapon to the left
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Early 19th-century military slang whose origin is genuinely unsettled — several accounts compete and none has won. All of them lean on the left's old associations with clumsiness and ill omen, carried in senestre, the root of sinistre. One traces it to fencing, where stripping an opponent's blade from his right hand left him there to be killed; one to the rest position, in which a soldier grounds his rifle at his left foot; one to Napoleonic reloading drill, which forced a man to shift his musket left and half-rise into enemy fire; and one to heraldry, where a dead husband's arms moved to the left of the shield.
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More French idioms
- Couler un bronze — To defecate.
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- Avoir le bourdon — To feel low; to be in a melancholy mood.
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From our tongue twisters
- Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
- 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'.
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