Tout le saint-frusquin
Meaning: The whole lot; everything one owns.
Language: French
Literally: The whole holy frusquin
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Frusquin was 17th-century slang for a man's clothes and belongings, and saint was attached purely as an intensifier, with no religious content. English says the whole kit and caboodle, built the same way from two obscure halves.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Manu militari — By force; with physical compulsion.
- Faire le matamore — To swagger and bluster without the courage to back it up.
- Vendre la mèche — To give away a secret or a plan.
- Le revers de la médaille — The unwelcome other side of something good.
- À beau mentir qui vient de loin — Travellers' tales cannot be checked, so they are told without restraint.
- Être à la merci de quelqu'un — To be entirely in someone's power.
More French idioms
- Des yeux de merlan frit — A soppy, languishing look.
- Payer en monnaie de singe — To pay with worthless promises instead of money.
- La montagne accouche d'une souris — A vast effort or grand announcement produces something trivial.
- La mouche du coche — Someone who bustles importantly while contributing nothing.
- On n'attrape pas les mouches avec du vinaigre — Gentleness achieves what harshness cannot.
- Prendre la mouche — To take sudden and disproportionate offense.
From our compliments & insults
- Courir sur le haricot — To get badly on someone's nerves.
- Tu as du chien — You have a certain irresistible magnetism — a je-ne-sais-quoi that draws people in.
- Tu as la tête sur les épaules — You're grounded, sensible, and dependable — not easily swept off course.
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