Rater le coche
Meaning: To miss an opportunity through being too slow.
Language: French
Literally: To miss the coach
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The coche was the horse-drawn stagecoach, and later the river barge, both of which left on a fixed schedule and did not wait. English formed the identical figure on boats and then buses.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Être coiffé au poteau — To be beaten by a hair right at the finish.
- Aux quatre coins de — All over; in every part of a place.
- Frappé au coin du bon sens — Manifestly sensible; bearing the stamp of sound judgment.
- Collet monté — Prim, stiff and old-fashioned in manner.
- Dans le collimateur — In someone's sights; singled out for scrutiny.
- Le complexe d'Œdipe — A child's unconscious attachment to the opposite-sex parent and rivalry with the other.
More French idioms
- Donner de la confiture à un cochon — To waste something fine on someone incapable of appreciating it.
- Un corbeau — The anonymous author of poison-pen letters.
- Bayer aux corneilles — To stand around idly, staring into space.
- Un panier de crabes — A group whose members constantly undermine one another.
- Chat échaudé craint l'eau froide — One bad experience makes you wary even where there is no danger.
- Une faim de loup — Ravenous hunger.
From our proverbs
- Ask but enough, and you may lower as you list. — Open by asking high, and you can always come down as you please.
- Ask thy purse what thou shouldst buy. — Let your purse, not your wishes, decide what you can buy.
- The ass that brays most, eats least. — The one who brays loudest often gets the smallest share.
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