Un coup de fil
Meaning: A telephone call.
Language: French
Literally: A blow of wire
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The fil is the telephone wire, from the era when the physical line was the salient fact about the technology. It has comfortably outlived the wires.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Tomber comme un couperet — To land suddenly and irrevocably, as of bad news.
- Faire la cour à quelqu'un — To court someone romantically.
- La cour des grands — The top tier, where the serious players are.
- Une fois n'est pas coutume — One exception does not establish a habit.
- Pendre la crémaillère — To hold a housewarming.
- Riche comme Crésus — Enormously wealthy.
More French idioms
- La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile — Faulting a work costs nothing compared with making one.
- Tant va la cruche à l'eau qu'à la fin elle se casse — Repeated risk-taking eventually catches up with you.
- Porter la culotte — To be the one who makes the decisions in a household.
- N'en avoir cure — To be entirely indifferent to something.
- Virer sa cuti — To undergo a complete change of convictions.
- Au grand dam de quelqu'un — To someone's considerable detriment or annoyance.
From our proverbs
- The best lie is the worst. — A lie that succeeds too perfectly eventually collapses under its own elaborate contradict…
- Let the best dog leap the stile first. — Merit should determine priority; the most capable should lead the way.
- The better the day, the better the deed. — Good fortune amplifies moral responsibility—prosperity demands virtue, not vice.
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