Promettre monts et merveilles
Meaning: To promise far more than could ever be delivered.
Language: French
Literally: To promise mountains and marvels
Category: The Absurd
Origin: The pairing is medieval and deliberately unbounded, offering both the largest physical things and things outside nature. It is used of manifestos and job offers.
More idioms — The Absurd
- De la poudre de perlimpinpin — A worthless remedy sold with great confidence.
- Un lit de Procuste — A standard imposed regardless of what it does to the thing being measured.
- Le rocher de Sisyphe — A labor that must be repeated forever and never completes.
- Le supplice de Tantale — Having what one wants permanently in sight and permanently out of reach.
- Une solution de continuité — A break or gap — not, despite appearances, a solution to anything.
- Demain, on rase gratis — A promise perpetually postponed.
More French idioms
- Entre le marteau et l'enclume — Caught between two opposing forces with no way out.
- Un pavé dans la mare — A revelation or intervention that disturbs a settled situation.
- Il y a de l'orage dans l'air — Trouble is brewing.
- Rouler sur l'or — To be enormously wealthy.
- Valoir son pesant d'or — To be extremely valuable.
- Manu militari — By force; with physical compulsion.
From our proverbs
- Out of debt, out of danger. — Freedom from financial obligations eliminates the vulnerability that creditors and desper…
- In the deepest water is the best fishing. — Seeking worthwhile rewards requires venturing into difficult, risky, or challenging circu…
- Deeds are fruits, words are but leaves. — Actions produce tangible results while mere promises and talk leave nothing of substance…
Loading the full interactive collection…