Tirer le portrait
Meaning: To take someone's photograph.
Language: French
Literally: To draw the portrait
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Nearly a pleonasm, if you know the old senses. In the Middle Ages traire and tirer shared several meanings — to head towards, to loose a missile weapon, and to draw a line — and tirer eventually took them all over, including the last. Portrait comes from portraire, that is por traire, in order to draw, and by the middle of the 16th century it meant the painted likeness of a face or bust; tirer quelqu'un meant to make their portrait at the same period, and by the end of that century the word had also stretched to cover a description in words. So tirer le portrait first meant simply to draw one. From the middle of the 19th century, as photographs displaced painted portraits, both it and tirer quelqu'un narrowed to the camera.
More idioms — Daily Life
- S'en moquer comme de l'an quarante — To not care in the slightest.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
- Avoir le cul entre deux chaises — To be indecisive, caught between two options.
- Les carottes sont cuites — It's too late, nothing can be done.
- Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof — I don't understand anything at all.
More French idioms
- Manger sur le pouce — To eat in a hurry, standing up.
- Cucul la praline — Twee; soppy; embarrassingly naive.
- Pour des prunes — For nothing; in vain.
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- C'est comme pisser dans un violon — A completely pointless effort.
- Avoir le cafard — To feel depressed or down.
From our proverbs
- If it were not for hope, the heart would break. — Despair without possibility of improvement destroys the human spirit; hope sustains us th…
- All are not hunters that blow the horn. — Not everyone who announces themselves possesses the skill or worthiness their proclamatio…
- A good horse cannot be of a bad colour. — True worth transcends superficial appearance; judge merit by substance, not by external c…
Loading the full interactive collection…