/ʁule syʁ lɔʁ/ lit. ‘to roll on gold’
French idiom, everyday. To have a lot of money.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Rouler sur l’or
?
Everyday French, often slightly envious or ironic: “ce mec roule sur l’or”. It’s even more common in the negative, as a modest way of saying money is tight: “je ne roule pas sur l’or, tu sais”.
Rouler sur l’or
in real sentences
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Elle roule sur l’or.
She’s rolling in money.
Tatoeba, sentence by lbdx, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Ce mec roule sur l’or.
That dude is rolling in dough.
Tatoeba, sentence by Asynja, translation by Asynja, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Rouler sur l’or
come from?
French Wiktionary gives no date or explanation, only quotations from 1889 onward and a reference to Charles Ferrand’s Dictionnaire des curieux (1880). The picture is clear enough: so much gold that you move around on top of it. Nobody seems to have pinned down whether the rolling is a carriage on a golden road or a person rolling in coins.
Mistakes learners make with Rouler sur l’or
Saying “rouler dans l’or”, after the English “rolling in money”. In French you roll on the gold: “sur l’or”.
Other French idioms like Rouler sur l’or
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?
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