Une fois n'est pas coutume
Meaning: One exception does not establish a habit.
Language: French
Literally: Once is not custom
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A legal maxim in origin: custom required repetition to acquire force, so a single instance created no precedent. It is now said mostly by people about to do something they do not usually do.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Pendre la crémaillère — To hold a housewarming.
- Riche comme Crésus — Enormously wealthy.
- 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.
More French idioms
- Virer sa cuti — To undergo a complete change of convictions.
- Au grand dam de quelqu'un — To someone's considerable detriment or annoyance.
- Trouver son chemin de Damas — To undergo a sudden and total conversion.
- Une épée de Damoclès — A disaster hanging over someone, liable to fall at any moment.
- Entretenir une danseuse — To maintain a costly indulgence that serves no purpose.
- À l'usage du Dauphin — Expurgated; censored for delicate sensibilities.
From our tongue twisters
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
- Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
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