Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps
Meaning: A single encouraging sign does not prove a trend.
Language: French
Literally: One swallow does not make the spring
Category: Animals
Origin: The thought is in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and reached French through Aesop's fable of the spendthrift who sold his coat at the first swallow and froze. English says one swallow does not make a summer.
More idioms — Animals
- Crier haro sur le baudet — To denounce someone publicly and unanimously.
- Courir plusieurs lièvres à la fois — To pursue too many aims at the same time and catch none.
- Lever un lièvre — To raise an awkward question nobody wanted opened.
- Une tête de linotte — A scatterbrain.
- La part du lion — By far the largest portion, taken by the strongest party.
- Être connu comme le loup blanc — To be known by absolutely everyone.
More French idioms
- Se jeter dans la gueule du loup — To walk straight into obvious danger.
- Un vieux loup de mer — A seasoned old sailor.
- Avoir des yeux de lynx — To have extremely sharp eyesight, or to notice everything.
- Des larmes de crocodile — Insincere grief performed for effect.
- Se laisser tondre la laine sur le dos — To let oneself be exploited without resisting.
- S'entendre comme larrons en foire — To be thick as thieves; to understand one another perfectly.
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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