Un vent à décorner les bœufs
Meaning: A ferociously strong wind.
Language: French
Literally: A wind to dehorn the oxen
Category: Animals
Origin: Hyperbole from farming country: a gale violent enough to tear the horns off an ox. Écorner (to break the horns of) may have shifted to décorner in the phrase, sharpening the image.
More idioms — Animals
- La bave du crapaud n'atteint pas la blanche colombe — Insults from a contemptible source cannot touch the person they target.
- Savoir où le bât blesse — To know exactly where the real difficulty or sore point lies.
- Faire un bœuf — To improvise music together; to hold a jam session.
- Rire comme un bossu — To laugh helplessly and without restraint.
- Rabattre le caquet à quelqu'un — To shut someone up; to take an insolent person down a peg.
- Caracoler en tête — To lead by a wide margin, especially in a race or in polls.
More French idioms
- Compter pour du beurre — To count for nothing; to be disregarded.
- Mettre du beurre dans les épinards — To improve one's financial situation; to make life a bit more comfortable.
- Beurré comme un p'tit Lu — Thoroughly drunk.
- Un compte d'apothicaire — A needlessly complicated calculation, usually one padded in the biller's favor.
- Tailler une bavette — To have a long, friendly chat.
- Une auberge espagnole — A place or discussion in which you find only what you yourself brought to it.
From our untranslatable words
- L'esprit de l'escalier — Thinking of the perfect comeback only after the moment has passed — on your way down the…
- Terroir — The unique character that a place — its soil, climate and tradition — gives to a wine or…
- Râler — To complain and grumble with a certain national flair — a beloved French pastime.
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