Un cautère sur une jambe de bois
Meaning: A remedy that is completely useless.
Language: French
Literally: A cautery on a wooden leg
Category: The Absurd
Origin: A cautery burns a wound to treat it, which requires a wound and therefore flesh. Applied to a wooden leg it does precisely nothing, the treatment being not merely ineffective but addressed to something incapable of being treated.
More idioms — The Absurd
- Se croire sorti de la cuisse de Jupiter — To have an absurdly high opinion of one's own importance.
- Le tonneau des Danaïdes — A hopeless undertaking that consumes everything and is never finished.
- Au diable vauvert — Miles from anywhere; the back of beyond.
- Il n'y a pas le feu au lac — There's no rush.
- Par l'opération du Saint-Esprit — By some unexplained miracle — said sarcastically of something nobody will account for.
- À la Saint-Glinglin — Never — on a day that will never come.
More French idioms
- Scier la branche sur laquelle on est assis — To destroy the thing your own position depends on.
- Tomber de Charybde en Scylla — To escape one danger only to meet a worse one.
- Proposer la botte à quelqu'un — To proposition someone sexually.
- Pousser le bouchon un peu loin — To go too far; to overstep.
- Tirer à boulets rouges — To attack someone ferociously and without restraint.
- Sans bourse délier — Without spending a penny.
From our tongue twisters
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès. — An 's' / 'si' minefield.
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
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