Qui trop embrasse mal étreint
Meaning: Attempting too many things at once means doing none of them properly.
Language: French
Literally: He who embraces too much holds badly
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Embrasser keeps its literal sense of taking into the arms, not kissing. Arms full past their capacity cannot grip anything, which is exactly the failure mode being described.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Une éminence grise — The unofficial power behind a public figure.
- À l'emporte-pièce — Trenchant and uncompromising, of a remark or judgment.
- Un enfant de la balle — Someone raised in the trade they now practice.
- L'enfer est pavé de bonnes intentions — Meaning well counts for nothing without acting well.
- Envers et contre tous — In defiance of universal opposition.
- À l'envi — Vying with one another; each trying to outdo the rest.
More French idioms
- Jeter l'éponge — To give up and concede.
- Passer l'éponge — To forgive and say no more about it.
- L'esprit de l'escalier — The perfect retort that arrives only after you have left.
- Tomber dans l'escarcelle de quelqu'un — To end up in someone's possession, often without their working for it.
- À bon escient — Advisedly; with proper judgment about when to do it.
- Des espèces sonnantes et trébuchantes — Hard cash, as opposed to promises or credit.
From our tongue twisters
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
- Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
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