/avwaʁ dy pɛ̃ syʁ la plɑ̃ʃ/ lit. ‘bread on the board’
French idiom, everyday. To have a lot of work or problems to deal with at once.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Avoir du pain sur la planche
?
Everyday French, common at work, at home and in the news. You conjugate avoir: “j’ai du pain sur la planche”, “on a du pain sur la planche”, “ils vont avoir du pain sur la planche”. It often sounds like a call to roll up your sleeves, as in English Wiktionary’s example “Bon, il faut qu’on commence”, and in the negative it becomes “pas de pain sur la planche”.
Avoir du pain sur la planche
in real sentences
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J’ai du pain sur la planche.
I have a lot to do.
Tatoeba, sentence by lapinhibou, translation by Asma, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Nous avons du pain sur la planche.
We’ve got our work cut out for us.
Tatoeba, sentence by zogwarg, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Avoir du pain sur la planche
come from?
The meaning has turned upside down. French Wiktionary says the Littré dictionary gives “avoir du pain (cuit) sur la planche” as having done your work and being free to rest, with baked bread waiting on the shelf, and Alfred Delvau’s slang dictionary of 1867 records a sense of having savings or an income. How the phrase flipped to mean work still waiting isn’t explained in the sources we found.
Mistakes learners make with Avoir du pain sur la planche
Reading it as being well off. In English slang bread can mean money, and in the 19th century the French phrase really did mean having savings, but today it only means having a lot of work ahead.
Other French idioms like Avoir du pain sur la planche
Spot a mistake in Avoir du pain sur la planche
?
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