/avwaʁ la ɡœl də bwa/ lit. ‘have a wooden mouth’
French idiom, familiar. To feel ill the morning after drinking too much alcohol.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Avoir la gueule de bois
?
Familiar French, the normal way to say it among friends and colleagues. You conjugate avoir: “j’ai la gueule de bois”, “il avait la gueule de bois”. Add an adjective and the article switches: “j’ai une sacrée gueule de bois” (I’ve got a hell of a hangover). “Une gueule de bois” on its own is simply the noun for a hangover.
Also said avoir une gueule de bois, avoir la GDB
Avoir la gueule de bois
in real sentences
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J’ai la gueule de bois.
I have a hangover.
Tatoeba, sentence by Cocorico, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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J’ai une énorme gueule de bois.
I’ve got a bad hangover.
Tatoeba, sentence by Selenyt, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Avoir la gueule de bois
come from?
French Wiktionary explains it as the dry, wooden feeling in your mouth after a night of drinking, with the meaning later widening to every symptom of the morning after; it cites expressio.fr and an Arte article for this, so it’s the accepted explanation but not a documented one. The oldest quotation on French Wiktionary is from Alphonse Allais in 1896, where a character says doctors call it “xylostome” (Greek for wooden mouth) while street toughs say “gueule de bois”. So by the 1890s it was known as slang. Gueule is the word for an animal’s mouth, which is why the phrase sounds rougher than “bouche” would.
Mistakes learners make with Avoir la gueule de bois
Copying the English “I’m hungover” with être: “je suis gueule de bois” doesn’t work. French uses avoir, “j’ai la gueule de bois”, the same way it says “j’ai faim” for “I’m hungry”.
Other French idioms like Avoir la gueule de bois
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