Sans tambour ni trompette
Meaning: Discreetly, without any announcement.
Language: French
Literally: Without drum or trumpet
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Both instruments belonged to the military ceremony of arrival and departure. Doing something without them means doing it in a way designed not to be noticed.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Prendre la tangente — To slip away, or to dodge a question.
- 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.
More French idioms
- Être mis sur la touche — To be sidelined and left out of things.
- 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.
From our tongue twisters
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.
- Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? — A merciless duel between 'ch' and 's'.
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès. — An 's' / 'si' minefield.
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