Tirer au flanc

Meaning: To dodge work; to shirk.

Language: French

Literally: To pull toward the flank / toward the backside

Example: “Pendant que les autres déchargeaient le camion, lui tirait au flanc.” — While the others unloaded the truck, he was swinging the lead.

English equivalent: To swing the lead

Category: Daily Life

Origin: Military, from the end of the 19th century. An army in battle order has a front, where the heroism and the dying happen, and it has flanks — the term in this sense since the 16th century — which are generally quieter and much the better place to be if you would rather not die stupidly for a cause larger than yourself. A man at the front who drifted toward the flank on some pressing errand was understood to be avoiding the worst of the risk, and his comrades thought little of him for it. From there the tire-au-flanc is anyone who slides quietly sideways out of an unpleasant job, and the sense spread far beyond the army. Tirer au cul is the coarser version, dodging toward the rear rather than the side. The verb is not about firing a weapon: it is se tirer, to take oneself off, and tirer had long meant to head toward — Molière uses it that way in L'Étourdi.