Pisser dans sa culotte / Pisser dans son froc
Meaning: To laugh helplessly — or, oppositely, to be terrified.
Language: French
Literally: To piss in one's trousers
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Two senses that look contrary and are in fact one: both come down to losing control of the sphincters. The phrase dates from the 16th century, though what it describes plainly predates it. Laugh hard enough with a full bladder and the abdominal contractions will do the rest, which is generally sufficient to end the laughing fit; that is the first sense, and it survives whether or not the accident actually occurs. A bad enough fright produces the same relaxation and therefore the same result, which is the second. There is a nice asymmetry in how French treats them: for fear the usual phrase is chier dans son froc instead, because urinating involuntarily can be attached to laughter without much shame, while the other thing is judged as harshly as the fear itself.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Se chatouiller le poireau / S'astiquer la colonne — To masturbate, said of a man. Vulgar.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
- Couper les cheveux en quatre — To over-analyze or split hairs.
- Se regarder le nombril — To be self-centered or narcissistic.
- Tomaten auf den Augen haben — To be oblivious to what's right in front of you.
More French idioms
- Être à côté de la plaque — To be wide of the mark; to answer something other than the question asked.
- Ça va durer trois plombes — It's going to take hours.
- Avoir la poisse — To have persistent, clinging bad luck.
- Avoir un coup de pompe — To be hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion.
- Ça se bouscule au portillon — There's a crush; also, crudely, of an urgent need to be sick.
- Tirer le portrait — To take someone's photograph.
From our untranslatable words
- Épanouissement — The full flourishing of a person — blooming into your most complete, radiant self. More t…
- Ressourcement — The act of returning to one's roots or origins to find renewal — going back to a place, t…
- Dépaysement — The disorienting yet often pleasant feeling of being far from home, immersed in the unfam…
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