/la mutaʁd mə mɔ̃t o ne/ lit. ‘the mustard is rising up my nose’
French idiom, familiar. To suddenly lose your temper.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use La moutarde me monte au nez
?
Familiar and a bit comic, used for the moment irritation turns into anger rather than for full rage. The pronoun changes with the person: “la moutarde me monte au nez”, “la moutarde lui est montée au nez”. “Sentir la moutarde (me) monter au nez” is a common way to say you can feel it coming.
Also said la moutarde lui monte au nez, sentir la moutarde monter au nez
La moutarde me monte au nez
in real sentences
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La moutarde me monte au nez.
I’m starting to lose my temper.
Tatoeba, sentence by pkill, CC BY 2.0 FR
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La moutarde lui est montée au nez.
He got angry.
Tatoeba, sentence by mifonto, translation by CM, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does La moutarde me monte au nez
come from?
No source we found explains it. French Wiktionary just breaks it into its words, and its oldest quotation is from Émile Moselly’s Terres lorraines (1907), in which a soldier says the mustard rose to his nose before he gave someone a beating. The obvious picture is the sharp sting strong mustard sends up your nose, but that’s a reading of the image, not a documented origin.
Mistakes learners make with La moutarde me monte au nez
Using a possessive in place of the pronoun, as in “la moutarde monte à mon nez”. French puts the person in front of the verb (me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur) and keeps “au nez”. In the past tense it’s “est montée” with être and a feminine agreement.
Other French idioms like La moutarde me monte au nez
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