/ɛtʁ foʃe kɔm le ble/ lit. ‘to be mown down like the wheat’
French idiom, familiar. To have no money at all.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Être fauché comme les blés
?
Familiar, a joking way to say you’re completely skint: “je suis fauché comme les blés jusqu’à la fin du mois”. Fauché agrees with the person (“elle est fauchée comme les blés”) while the wheat stays plural. Plain “fauché” on its own already means broke.
Être fauché comme les blés
in real sentences
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Je suis fauché comme les blés.
I’m broke.
Tatoeba, sentence by lbdx, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Il est fauché comme les blés.
He is poor as a church mouse.
Tatoeba, sentence by sacredceltic, translation by monahxo, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Être fauché comme les blés
come from?
It’s a pun. Faucher means to mow or reap, and fauché is also slang for having no money, so the phrase compares a person to a wheat field after harvest, cut down to the stubble. French Wiktionary calls it a popular metaphor and quotes it from a Lucky Luke album of 1969; it gives no first date.
Mistakes learners make with Être fauché comme les blés
Reading fauché as just “mown”. In everyday French fauché alone means broke, and “comme les blés” is the pun on top, so “je suis fauché” is perfectly normal on its own.
Other French idioms like Être fauché comme les blés
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?
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