Belgium· hard· informal
à pouf
“at 'pouf' (a word of uncertain origin)”
Meaning
in a random, haphazard way
Explanation
Belgian French for doing something with no method at all, whatever falls out however it falls. Answer an exam à pouf and you are guessing every line; plan a holiday à pouf and you have booked precisely nothing. Where 'pouf' itself comes from, nobody is sure.
Example
Il a répondu à pouf, sans même lire la question.
He answered completely at random, without even reading the question.
Origin
The word turns up as far back as 1789, in a Parisian market traders' book of grievances, but in an older sense of buying stock on credit that has since died out. How it came to mean at random in Belgium is not documented; Wiktionary leaves the etymology open.
Source
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