Payer rubis sur l'ongle
Meaning: To pay in full, immediately and to the last penny.
Language: French
Literally: To pay ruby on the nail
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: From the drinking custom of tipping the last drop onto the thumbnail and drinking it, proving the glass was truly empty. The ruby is the bead of red wine, and the transfer to payment kept the sense of leaving nothing owed.
More idioms — Food & Drink
- Faire avancer le schmilblick — To make actual progress on something.
- Avaler des poires d'angoisse — To endure something bitterly painful.
- En cinq sec — In no time at all.
- Une tarte à la crème — A tired cliché trotted out as though it were an argument.
- Décrocher la timbale — To carry off the prize.
- Trier sur le volet — To hand-pick with great care.
More French idioms
- Jeter de la poudre aux yeux — To create a dazzling false impression.
- Tenir à quelque chose comme à la prunelle de ses yeux — To guard something as one's most precious possession.
- Allumer ses quinquets — To open one's eyes and pay attention.
- Couper le sifflet à quelqu'un — To silence someone abruptly, usually with an unanswerable point.
- Être dans ses petits souliers — To be acutely ill at ease.
- Mordre la poussière — To be defeated; to fall.
From our proverbs
- Let every tub stand on its own bottom. — Each person must support themselves financially and practically without depending on othe…
- If you must have an evil, choose a little one. — Small harms wisely accepted spare you from greater suffering later.
- That which is evil is soon learnt. — Evil habits spread faster than good ones because humans naturally gravitate toward the ea…
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