/kuʁiʁ syʁ lə aʁiko/ lit. ‘run on someone’s bean’
French idiom, familiar. To annoy or irritate someone.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Courir sur le haricot
?
Familiar, slangy French: fine with friends, a bit cheeky with your boss. It nearly always comes with an indirect object pronoun and “commencer à”: “tu commences à me courir sur le haricot”. With a name you say “il lui court sur le haricot” or, in casual speech, “il court sur le haricot à Paul”.
Also said courir sur l’haricot
Courir sur le haricot
in real sentences
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Tu commences à me courir sur le haricot.
You’re starting to get on my nerves.
Tatoeba, sentence by sysko, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Vous commencez à me courir sur le haricot.
You’re starting to get on my nerves.
Tatoeba, sentence by Fenrir, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Courir sur le haricot
come from?
French Wiktionary dates it to the end of the 19th century and explains it from three older slang uses. From the 16th century, popular speech used “courir” (“courir quelqu’un”) to mean to pester someone. In the early 19th century “haricoter” also meant to pester. And in slang, “haricot” meant a toe. So the most likely picture is someone running over your toes, though that reading is a reconstruction, not a recorded explanation.
Mistakes learners make with Courir sur le haricot
Using a direct object pronoun: “il le court sur le haricot”. The person being annoyed is an indirect object, so it’s “il lui court sur le haricot” (or “me”, “te”, “nous”, “vous”, “leur”).
Other French idioms like Courir sur le haricot
Spot a mistake in Courir sur le haricot
?
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