Quebec French idioms, expressions and slang

Quebec

done by hand rather than with machines

It describes doing something the old-fashioned way, using your hands rather than a machine or precision tool.

Quebec

hurry up and get to the point

A cheeky way of telling someone to stop dawdling and finish whatever they're trying to say.

Quebec

to tell someone to get lost

A blunt, half-joking way of telling someone to clear off, usually said in the imperative.

Quebec

to tell someone to clear off and stop bothering you

A cheeky Quebec way of brushing someone off, often aimed at a daft remark.

Quebec

to push your luck too far

Used when someone abuses a privilege or generosity already extended to them, going well past what's reasonable.

Quebec

to brace yourself, something intense is about to happen

It's a heads-up that whatever comes next, a story, an event, some news, is going to be a lot to take in.

CanadaBelgiumSwitzerlandMoselle

to be wearing trousers that are too short

Said of someone whose trousers ride up short enough to show their socks, as though they had hitched them up to keep dry from a flood down in the basement. Belgians mostly say dans les caves and the Swiss à la cave; this singular form is the one heard in Moselle and Canada.

Quebec

to be rushed off your feet with too much to do

Used in Quebec French for being run off your feet, too busy and rushed to catch a breath.

Quebec

to be a natural talker, always up for a chat

Describes someone chatty by nature in Quebec French, always ready to talk about anything and everything.

Quebec

to be experienced enough that nobody can fool you

The years of watching winters go by are shorthand for having enough life experience that you're hard to deceive.

Quebec

to still have a lot to learn

Back when nothing on the plate went to waste, kids had to finish every last crust before leaving the table. Eating your croûtes became shorthand for grinding through the unglamorous work before you've earned any expertise.

Quebec

to have outrageous nerve

Someone with front tout le tour de la tête has so much nerve it might as well wrap right around their skull, the superlative version of plain 'avoir du front'.

Quebec

to feel a sudden rush of fear

In Quebec this means being seized by fear. Curiously, just over the border in France the same words can instead mean feeling lazy or a bit low, so it pays to know which side you're on.

Quebec

to be in low spirits

In Quebec this describes feeling low or fed up, though the same words back in Normandy, where the dialect word falle comes from, mean being ravenously hungry instead.

Quebec

to be too worn out to concentrate

It describes someone so worn out their eyes seem to have merged into one bleary, unfocused stare, more about fatigue than an actual squint.

Quebec

to have legs that suddenly feel wobbly

Marshmallow is Quebec's spin on a much older French idiom family for legs that have gone soft and unreliable, usually from exhaustion, illness, or too much physical effort.

Quebec

to be half asleep

This expression describes someone who is fatigued and not fully awake, with a gaze altered by tiredness. The English equivalent would be 'bleary-eyed'.

Quebec

to have one's own personal issues

Used for someone's own private hang-ups, quirks or worries, the kind everyone is assumed to be carrying around.

Quebec

to have had enough

Used when you've reached your limit of what's acceptable, expressing annoyance or disgust. It can also express great amazement. The English equivalent would be 'I've had it' or 'that's the last straw'.

Quebec

to still feel bitter about a past hurt

The image is of something small and foul stuck right next to your heart, standing in for a grudge you can't quite shake off.

Quebec

to have a thoroughly detestable attitude

This is about someone's whole manner being insufferable, not just their looks. In Quebec French 'fesser' means to hit hard, not just tap, so the image is a face that practically invites a smack. 'Avoir une face à claques' is a close cousin.

CanadaSwitzerland

wishing someone a happy birthday

In Québec and Switzerland this is simply how you wish someone happy birthday, quite different from standard French usage, where fête marks a person's saint's day rather than their birthday.

Quebec

a petty tyrant who bosses others around

Someone who lords it over everyone as though they ran something important, when their patch of authority is tiny and distinctly unglamorous.

Quebec

to shake someone out of their complacency

It's about giving someone a jolt, a provocation designed to wake them up or push them into changing their ways.

Quebec

to flirt with someone, laying on the charm

Quebec French for turning on the charm, chatting someone up with sweet talk.

QuebecHaiti

overpriced

Something that costs too much is hors de prix in standard French. In Quebec and Haiti it is chérant.

Quebec

to be out at night chasing romantic adventure

Someone off courir la galipote is out on the town at night, often up to romantic or mischievous business, echoing old folk tales about a shapeshifting night creature of the same name.

CanadaBelgiumSwitzerlandCongo-KinshasaHaitiHauts-de-France, Grand Est, Occitanie

to have your midday meal

In standard French you déjeuner at midday and dîner in the evening. Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and parts of France keep dîner for the midday meal, which is the older sense.

CanadaBelgiumSwitzerland

to repeat a school year

France redoubles a year. Belgium, Switzerland and Canada drop the re- and simply double it.

Quebec

to crouch down with knees bent

Down on your heels with knees bent, ready to spring straight back up. It's the position a Quebec parent drops into to talk to a child at eye level.

Quebec

utterly lacking in common sense

In Quebec, 'épais' is both the ordinary word for thick and a well-worn insult for someone slow on the uptake. The full phrase pushes it further: at their very thinnest, this person is still thick.

Quebec

to keep bringing up old grudges

Used for someone who won't let an old quarrel rest and keeps digging up grievances that should have been forgotten.

Quebec

to be completely overwhelmed with work

Picture someone stewing in their own juices at the office: too much to do and no room to breathe. This use of 'jus' is Québécois (and old Auvergne dialect); in France the same phrase can instead mean nursing a hangover.

Quebec

to be completely wrong about something

Quebec slang for getting it flat out wrong, on a test, in an argument, wherever. In France, people would more likely say 'être à côté de la plaque'.

Quebec

to be slow to understand things

Comprenure is a distinctly Quebec word for the faculty of understanding, built from comprendre the way fermeture is built from fermer. Someone dur de comprenure is thick when it comes to picking things up, though in Quebec the phrase often carries a knowing edge, aimed at someone who is stubbornly refusing to get the point rather than genuinely struggling.

Quebec

to be absolutely furious

In Quebec French, someone worked up like a loaded rifle is one step from going off, which is exactly the state this phrase describes.

Quebec

to be in a towering rage

This is Quebec's polite stand-in for swearing when you're properly angry. 'Joualvert' softens the religious oath 'calvaire' by swapping out the first part and hearing the ending as the colour green.

Quebec

to be resigned to a life of modest means

A fatalistic shrug about your lot in life: born to get by on scraps, so don't expect more.

Quebec

to be extremely on edge

A Quebec way to say someone's nerves are stretched to breaking point, quick to snap at the smallest thing.

Quebec

to be perfectly in order

A cheerful stamp of approval for anything that's going exactly as it should.

Quebec

someone who criticises from the sidelines without joining in

The stands are where everyone knows exactly what the coach should have done. Quebec French turned that into a label for the type: never played a minute, opinion on every substitution. 'Ti-Jo Connaissant' does the same job, and English lands near it with 'armchair quarterback' or 'backseat driver'.

Quebec

to fuss over pointless, trivial details

Frogs don't have hair, so setting out to whittle some is a joke about wasting effort on something pointlessly finicky.

Quebec

to be very badly dressed

A very Quebec way to say someone looks a proper mess, dressed any old how.

QuebecSwitzerlandBelgiumnorthern France, Savoie

it is cold and damp out

Standard French spells it out as il fait froid et humide. Quebec, Switzerland, Belgium, the north of France and Savoie say the weather is cru, raw.

Quebec

to have wild uninhibited fun

It's about really letting go, cutting loose with laughter, energy or celebration, with no worry about what comes after.

Quebec

it's raining while the sun is shining

An old Quebec way of remarking on that odd weather when it's raining and sunny at once, a sunshower.

Quebec

to selfishly keep all the attention on oneself

Comes from hockey, where a player who won't pass and keeps the puck to themselves is said to be eating it, used more broadly for anyone who hogs the spotlight or the credit.

Quebec

to take a serious beating

Whether it's a real scrap or a lopsided match, this covers getting properly beaten: a hiding in a fight, or a crushing loss in a game.

Quebec

to run as a candidate in an election

Refers to standing for office, seen in Quebec as a fairly bold and thick-skinned thing to do.

Quebec

to take on a risky venture

Comes from the real physical danger of old wringer washing machines, so it's used for getting into a situation, a deal, a relationship, that could easily turn into a mess.

Quebec

to rain hard enough to soak anyone outside

Standard French says 'pleuvoir' when it rains. Quebec French just as often says 'mouiller', and this version pictures rain heavy enough that you could tip your head back and drink it where you stand.

AcadiaSwitzerlandBelgiumCongo-Kinshasa

ninety

France counts its way there with quatre-vingt-dix, four-twenty-ten. Switzerland, Belgium, DR Congo and Acadia just say nonante, nine tens.

QuebecNormandy

a noncommittal way of avoiding a straight answer

The classic Norman non-answer, hedging your bets rather than committing either way. It plays into the regional stereotype of Normans as famously cagey.

Quebec

to speak confidently about something you don't understand

Someone parlant à travers son chapeau is holding forth on a subject they barely understand, bluffing rather than admitting they don't know.

Quebec

everyone should get along peacefully at home

A household call to break up an argument, said half seriously, half in fun.

Quebec

to trick someone into a bad deal

Usually heard as 'se faire passer un sapin', to get swindled, it's about being conned or fobbed off with something worse than what you paid for.

Quebec

to laze around

It describes someone who is slacking off instead of working.

CanadaBelgiumSwitzerlandOccitanie, Rhône-Alpes

the evening meal

In France the evening meal is le dîner. Where dîner still means lunch, in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and parts of southern France, the evening meal is le souper.

Quebec

to manage on your own

In Quebec usage, it means figuring things out by yourself without help.

CanadaBelgium

to strike someone as instantly likeable

The one who falls is the one being admired: you fall into someone's eye when they like what they see. Elsewhere in French, 'taper dans l'œil' does the same job.

CanadaBelgium

a cloth for washing the floor

A French torchon dries the dishes. In Belgium and Canada the same word is the cloth you mop the floor with, the thing France calls a serpillière.

Quebec

to go on a drinking binge

This Quebec expression means partying hard with lots of alcohol.