Trempé comme une soupe
Meaning: Drenched to the skin.
Language: French
Literally: Soaked like a soup
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: A soupe was originally the slice of bread the broth was poured over, not the liquid — so the comparison is to something saturated rather than to a bowl. The older sense survives only here and in tremper la soupe.
More idioms — Food & Drink
- Payer rubis sur l'ongle — To pay in full, immediately and to the last penny.
- Faire avancer le schmilblick — To make actual progress on something.
- Avaler des poires d'angoisse — To endure something bitterly painful.
- En cinq sec — In no time at all.
- Une tarte à la crème — A tired cliché trotted out as though it were an argument.
- Décrocher la timbale — To carry off the prize.
More French idioms
- Jeter de la poudre aux yeux — To create a dazzling false impression.
- Tenir à quelque chose comme à la prunelle de ses yeux — To guard something as one's most precious possession.
- 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.
From our tongue twisters
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
- Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.
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