/avwaʁ də la vɛn/ lit. ‘have vein’
French idiom, familiar. To be lucky, often by pure chance.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Avoir de la veine
?
Familiar, a little old-school, and usually said about someone else’s good luck with a mix of envy and amusement: “tu as de la veine !”. The person who’s always lucky is “un veinard” or “une veinarde”. Negative: “pas de veine !” (tough luck).
Also said en avoir de la veine, avoir une veine de cocu
Avoir de la veine
in real sentences
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Tu as de la veine.
You’re lucky.
Tatoeba, sentence by Blabla, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Comme il a de la veine !
He’s so lucky!
Tatoeba, sentence by mraz, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Avoir de la veine
come from?
French Wiktionary links it to miners and prospectors: a “veine” is also a seam of ore, and hitting a rich vein of gold was the luck every digger hoped for. The entry is marked as an etymology stub and gives no date, so treat that as the likeliest explanation rather than a proven one.
Mistakes learners make with Avoir de la veine
Translating it with the blood vessel in mind. In “avoir de la veine” the word means luck, so “il a de la veine” never has anything to do with veins, and you need the partitive “de la”, not “une veine”.
Other French idioms like Avoir de la veine
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?
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