Un homme averti en vaut deux
Meaning: Advance warning doubles a person's effectiveness.
Language: French
Literally: A forewarned man is worth two
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The arithmetic is the appeal: the warning is treated as an addition of strength rather than merely of knowledge. English says forewarned is forearmed, which makes the same claim more abstractly.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Honi soit qui mal y pense — Let anyone who reads something improper into this be the one disgraced.
- À huis clos — In closed session, with the public excluded.
- Mettre à l'index — To blacklist something or exclude it from acceptable use.
- Un violon d'Ingres — A serious passion pursued outside one's actual profession.
- Un coup de Jarnac — An unexpected decisive stroke, delivered within the rules but not quite sportingly.
- Jeux de mains, jeux de vilains — Horseplay ends badly.
More French idioms
- On ne peut être juge et partie — Nobody may rule on a matter in which they have an interest.
- Un jugement de Salomon — A ruling of great wisdom that exposes the truth by testing it.
- C'est kif-kif — It makes no difference at all.
- Une fine lame — A highly skilled practitioner.
- Sur l'air des lampions — Chanted rhythmically on three insistent notes, as a crowd does.
- Perdre son latin — To be completely baffled by something.
From our false friends
- Ignorer — Actually means 'to be unaware of' or 'not to know'. J'ignore la réponse = I don't know th…
- Déception — Actually means 'disappointment'. For deception (a trick), say tromperie.
- Monnaie — Actually means 'change' or 'coins'. Money in general is l'argent.
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