Se cailler les miches
Meaning: To be freezing cold.
Language: French
Literally: To curdle one's buttocks
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Se cailler turns up in Céline in the 1930s: cailler is what milk does as it cools and sets, so the picture is blood thickening in the veins until it will not move. Miches for buttocks comes from the split round loaf and dates from late 19th-century argot, helped by an earlier use of the same word for the moon. The variant les meules is mid-20th century and less confidently explained, probably from the rounded top of a haystack.
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- S'en battre l'œil / S'en tamponner le coquillard — To not care in the slightest.
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- Un chaud lapin — A man with a voracious appetite for sex.
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From our untranslatable words
- L'esprit de l'escalier — Thinking of the perfect comeback only after the moment has passed — on your way down the…
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