Tenir à quelque chose comme à la prunelle de ses yeux
Meaning: To guard something as one's most precious possession.
Language: French
Literally: To hold to something like the pupil of one's eye
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Prunelle is the pupil, named for the sloe it resembles. The pupil was thought the most delicate and irreplaceable part of the body, which is why English arrived at the apple of one's eye from the same reasoning.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- Allumer ses quinquets — To open one's eyes and pay attention.
- Couper le sifflet à quelqu'un — To silence someone abruptly, usually with an unanswerable point.
- Être dans ses petits souliers — To be acutely ill at ease.
- Mordre la poussière — To be defeated; to fall.
- Avoir plus d'un tour dans son sac — To have resources in reserve.
- Vider son sac — To say everything one has been holding back.
More French idioms
- De la poudre de perlimpinpin — A worthless remedy sold with great confidence.
- Un lit de Procuste — A standard imposed regardless of what it does to the thing being measured.
- Le rocher de Sisyphe — A labor that must be repeated forever and never completes.
- Le supplice de Tantale — Having what one wants permanently in sight and permanently out of reach.
- Une solution de continuité — A break or gap — not, despite appearances, a solution to anything.
- Demain, on rase gratis — A promise perpetually postponed.
From our proverbs
- Of two evils choose the lesser. — When facing unavoidable harm, select the option causing minimum damage rather than suffer…
- A bad excuse is better than none at all. — Offering some explanation, however flawed, preserves dignity better than silent admission…
- Proportion your expenses to what you have, not to what you expect. — Spending based on current resources prevents financial ruin when anticipated income or ga…
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