tirer le diable par la queue
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See also: tirer le diable par la queuë
French[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Attested in Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (1694), p. 326, as tirer le diable par la queuë. Literally, “to pull the devil by the tail”.
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
- to scrape by, to live from hand to mouth, to feel the pinch, to have trouble to make ends meet, not to have enough to live
See also[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- “diable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.