passer un mauvais quart d’heure
Meaning: to experience a brief but unpleasant or distressing moment.
Language: French
Literally: to pass a bad quarter of an hour
Category: Daily Life
Origin: French origin, attested since at least the 18th century; the quarter-hour marks a short but memorable span of discomfort.
More idioms — Daily Life
- envoyer des piques — To make cutting or barbed remarks intended to irritate or provoke someone.
- prendre le train en marche — To join opportunely in an action or endeavor already underway.
- aiguiser ses couteaux — To prepare oneself for conflict or confrontation.
- passer le Rubicon — To make a decisive, irrevocable commitment or choice with serious consequences.
- être à ramasser à la petite cuiller — To be completely exhausted, utterly without strength.
- être du propre — Used ironically to criticize something as morally or physically filthy.
More French idioms
- prendre le maquis — To go into hiding or join a resistance movement to escape authority or persecution.
- ne pas en croire ses oreilles — To be startled or disbelieving upon hearing something astonishing.
- se composer le visage — To adopt a serious or carefully studied expression suited to the circumstances.
- être de mauvais poil — To be in a bad mood or irritable disposition.
- casser le nez à coups d’encensoir — To offer someone clumsy, exaggerated, and insincere flattery to their face.
- se casser la figure — To fall to the ground; to have an accident or suffer a collapse.
Loading the full interactive collection…