Tirer à boulets rouges
Meaning: To attack someone ferociously and without restraint.
Language: French
Literally: To fire with red cannonballs
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Cannonballs heated red-hot in a furnace were fired to set enemy ships and buildings alight — a deliberate escalation beyond ordinary shot. The phrase marks an attack meant not just to hit but to destroy.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Sans bourse délier — Without spending a penny.
- Un branle-bas de combat — Frantic preparation; a general commotion.
- Battre en brèche — To attack a position or argument until it collapses.
- Une brève de comptoir — An overheard bar-room witticism, usually absurd and unintentionally profound.
- Cela va faire du bruit dans Landerneau — That is going to cause a stir.
- Brut de décoffrage — Rough, unpolished, delivered without any finishing.
More French idioms
- De but en blanc — Point-blank; abruptly and without preparation.
- Avoir un cadavre dans le placard — To have a discreditable secret in one's past.
- C'est le cadet de mes soucis — It is the very least of my concerns.
- Fumer le calumet de la paix — To make peace after a quarrel.
- Enterrer la hache de guerre — To end a feud and set hostilities aside.
- Carpe diem — Make the most of the present rather than counting on the future.
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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