Prendre la tangente
Meaning: To slip away, or to dodge a question.
Language: French
Literally: To take the tangent
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A tangent touches a curve and leaves it immediately, never to return. The phrase came into general French from the slang of the École polytechnique, where the mathematics was to hand.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Partir à Tataouine — To be packed off somewhere remote and unpleasant.
- Un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l'auras — A certain small gain beats a larger promised one.
- Mieux vaut tenir que courir — Better to keep what you have than chase what you might get.
- Un travail de Titan — An undertaking of enormous scale.
- À tombeau ouvert — At reckless, life-threatening speed.
- Être mis sur la touche — To be sidelined and left out of things.
More French idioms
- Botter en touche — To dodge a question by changing the subject.
- Une tour d'ivoire — A position of deliberate detachment from ordinary life.
- La tournée des grands-ducs — A lavish night out taking in every fashionable establishment.
- Un coup de Trafalgar — A sudden catastrophic reversal, often felt to be underhand.
- Doré sur tranche — Extremely wealthy; luxuriously appointed.
- Le bout du tunnel — The first sign that a long difficulty is ending.
From our proverbs
- So many frosts in March, so many in May. — Late spring frosts arrive proportionally to early spring cold spells, making March weathe…
- Such as the tree is, such is the fruit. — People's actions and character naturally reflect their inner nature and values.
- If you would enjoy the fruit, pluck not the flower. — Premature harvesting destroys potential; patience allows natural development to completio…
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