IdiomBody & Senses
French
FrenchUn écorché vif
Meaning: Someone painfully hypersensitive to everything around them.
Literally: A flayed-alive man
Example: “Ce poète est un écorché vif : la moindre critique le bouleverse.” — The poet is painfully raw: the slightest criticism devastates him.
Origin: An écorché is the anatomical figure drawn or modeled with the skin removed to show the muscles, standard in art training since the Renaissance. Applied to a person, it means having no protective layer at all.
More French idioms
- 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.
- Au creux de la vague At a low point, with the expectation that things will rise again.
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