/sə fɑ̃dʁə la pwaʁ/ lit. ‘split your pear’
French idiom, familiar. To laugh very hard.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Se fendre la poire
?
Familiar French for friends, family and chatty colleagues, too slangy for a formal letter. It’s reflexive, so it changes with the person: “je me fends la poire”, “on s’est fendu la poire”. People mostly use it in the past tense to describe a good evening or a funny film.
Also said se fendre la gueule, se fendre la pipe
Se fendre la poire
in real sentences
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Je me suis fendu la poire !
I laughed my head off!
Tatoeba, sentence by lbdx, translation by rokito, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Ils se sont fendu la poire.
They laughed their heads off.
Tatoeba, sentence by lbdx, translation by sundown, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Se fendre la poire
come from?
“Poire” is old French slang for the face, and French Wiktionary explains the picture as a grin so wide it looks like a split in the fruit. The oldest quote it gives is from Jacques Perret’s novel “Le Caporal épinglé” (1947), though the expression is probably older; none of the sources checked gives a first date.
Mistakes learners make with Se fendre la poire
Making the past participle agree: “elle s’est fendue la poire” is wrong. “La poire” is the direct object and comes after the verb, so it stays “elle s’est fendu la poire”, just like “elle s’est lavé les mains”.
Other French idioms like Se fendre la poire
Spot a mistake in Se fendre la poire
?
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