FrenchPasser un mauvais quart d’heure
Meaning: to experience a brief but unpleasant or distressing moment.
Literally: To pass a bad quarter of an hour
Example: “Quand le propriétaire a découvert la fenêtre cassée, le gamin a passé un mauvais quart d'heure.” — When the owner found the broken window, the kid had a rough time of it.
Origin: A quarter of an hour is short, and that is the point: the ordeal does not last, but it is intense while it does. The Académie française lists the phrase as familiar French in 1878, and it was a staple of comedy, as when a character in Feydeau (1892) swears the culprit will have a bad quarter of an hour. It has an older cousin, le quart d'heure de Rabelais, the moment when the bill must be paid, named, according to the Trévoux dictionary of the 1740s, for Rabelais's embarrassment at inns when he had no money.
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.
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