FrenchSéance tenante
Meaning: Then and there, without adjournment.
Literally: The session holding
Example: “Pris en flagrant délit, le vendeur a été renvoyé séance tenante.” — Caught red-handed, the salesman was fired then and there.
Origin: Both halves are older than they look. Séance comes from seoir, which in the 11th century meant to be seated, and through its Latin root sedere it is family to asseoir, to siège and so to siéger — a séance being people sitting down together to settle something. Tenante is just the present participle of tenir, so the phrase originally meant the session currently being held, or in the course of it, and appears at the very start of the 19th century. The figurative sense arrives in the middle of the same century by a short step: if the session is being held right now, then so is the thing you are demanding.
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- Les vaches grasses A period of plenty.
- Aller comme un tablier à une vache To suit someone appallingly badly.
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