Péter les plombs
Meaning: To lose one's temper completely.
Language: French
Literally: To blow the fuses
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Lead fuses melted to break a circuit under overload, so blowing them was the system failing safely rather than catastrophically. French also says disjoncter, to trip out, from the same wiring.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Faire le point — To take stock of where things stand.
- Pomme de discorde — The particular thing two parties are fighting over.
- En grande pompe — With elaborate ceremony.
- Comme le Pont-Neuf — In excellent shape despite considerable age.
- Enfoncer une porte ouverte — To make a great effort to establish something nobody disputes.
- La portion congrue — A bare minimum, grudgingly given.
More French idioms
- Saoul comme un Polonais — Extremely drunk.
- Défendre son pré carré — To protect one's own territory or area of authority.
- Lâcher la proie pour l'ombre — To give up something real in pursuit of something illusory.
- Nul n'est prophète en son pays — Recognition is hardest to win from the people who know you.
- Une victoire à la Pyrrhus — A win whose cost makes it indistinguishable from defeat.
- En quarantaine — In quarantine; isolated from contact.
From our proverbs
- A feast is not made of mushrooms only. — Variety and balance are essential; no single element, however good, sustains a complete w…
- Merry is the feast-making until we come to the reckoning. — Pleasure derived from excess loses its sweetness when consequences and debts demand payme…
- Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them. — Foolish spenders throw lavish parties while prudent people enjoy free entertainment witho…
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