/ɑ̃n‿avwaʁ ʁa lə bɔl/ lit. ‘have a bowl full to the brim’
French idiom, familiar. To have completely run out of patience with something.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use En avoir ras le bol
?
Familiar, very common in speech, on protest banners and in headlines, and fine with friends or colleagues. You conjugate “avoir” and keep the “en”: “j’en ai ras le bol”, “il en avait ras le bol”. Add “de” for the thing you’re tired of (“j’en ai ras le bol de ce boulot”), and on its own “ras le bol !” works as an exclamation.
Also said en avoir ras-le-bol, ras le bol !
En avoir ras le bol
in real sentences
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J’en ai ras le bol.
I’ve had enough.
Tatoeba, sentence by sacredceltic, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Il en a ras le bol.
He is fed up.
Tatoeba, sentence by AmarMecheri, translation by AmarMecheri, CC0 1.0
Where does En avoir ras le bol
come from?
It’s fairly recent. French Wiktionary, citing the Larousse etymological dictionary by Dubois, Mitterand and Dauzat, dates it to the mid-20th century and says it began as “en avoir ras le cul”, with “bol” replacing the ruder word in slang. Why bol? A Larousse book by Delphine Gaston-Sloan suggests the round shape or the idea that both have a bottom, but those are guesses. The noun “ras-le-bol” came later: the Petit Robert dates it to 1968.
Mistakes learners make with En avoir ras le bol
Dropping “en”. “J’ai ras le bol” sounds wrong; English Wiktionary points out that “en” stays in the phrase even when a “de” phrase follows: “j’en ai ras le bol de tes excuses”.
Other French idioms like En avoir ras le bol
Spot a mistake in En avoir ras le bol
?
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