/vɑ̃dʁ la mɛʃ/ lit. ‘sell the fuse’
French idiom, familiar. To reveal a secret, often by accident.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Vendre la mèche
?
Familiar and very common, about surprise parties, plot twists and office gossip alike. Most often in the passé composé (“Tom a vendu la mèche”) or as a warning: “ne vends pas la mèche”. French Wiktionary notes the one who sells the fuse is someone in on the secret, while “éventer la mèche” is when outsiders find it out.
Vendre la mèche
in real sentences
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Tom a vendu la mèche.
Tom let the cat out of the bag.
Tatoeba, sentence by lbdx, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Tom allait mentir, mais il a fini par vendre la mèche.
Tom was going to lie, but he ended up spilling the beans.
Tatoeba, sentence by lbdx, translation by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Vendre la mèche
come from?
The mèche here is a fuse. French Wiktionary says the phrase was born in the mid-19th century from the older military “éventer la mèche” (late 16th century), which meant finding an enemy mine and exposing its fuse before it could go off, and later uncovering a plot. Vendre is meant in the sense of betraying. Littré’s dictionary of 1875 still called “vendre la mèche” a faulty popular phrase.
Mistakes learners make with Vendre la mèche
Mixing it up with “être de mèche”, which uses the same noun but means to be in cahoots with someone. “Il est de mèche avec elle” says they’re plotting together, not that he gave anything away.
Other French idioms like Vendre la mèche
Spot a mistake in Vendre la mèche
?
Send a correction, or a sentence you’d actually say with it. Everything is read before anything on this page changes.