French idioms love animals—and honestly, they often use them to describe human behavior in the most colorful ways possible.

Here are 20 popular French expressions featuring animals, complete with their literal translations and what they actually mean.

Can you guess their meaning?

Everyday Character Traits & Moods

• Avoir un chat dans la gorge
  • Literal translation: To have a cat in the throat
  • Meaning: To have a frog in your throat (hoarse voice).
• Avoir d’autres chats à fouetter
  • Literal translation: To have other cats to whip
  • Meaning: To have bigger fish to fry / more important things to do.
• Être une poule mouillée
  • Literal translation: To be a wet hen
  • Meaning: To be a coward or a “chicken.”
• Avoir une faim de loup
  • Literal translation: To have a wolf’s hunger
  • Meaning: To be starving / famished.
• Avoir le cafard
  • Literal translation: To have the cockroach
  • Meaning: To feel down, depressed, or have the blues.
• Être d’une humeur de chien
  • Literal translation: To be in a dog’s mood
  • Meaning: To be in a foul, terrible mood.

Actions & Behaviors

• Donner sa langue au chat
  • Literal translation: To give one’s tongue to the cat
  • Meaning: To give up guessing (usually when trying to solve a riddle).
• Sauter du coq à l’âne
  • Literal translation: To jump from the rooster to the donkey
  • Meaning: To abruptly change the subject in conversation without transition.
• Poser un lapin (à quelqu’un)
  • Literal translation: To place a rabbit (on someone)
  • Meaning: To stand someone up.
• Être comme un coq en pâte
  • Literal translation: To be like a rooster in dough
  • Meaning: To be pampered, extremely comfortable, and living the good life.
• Mettre la charrue avant les bœufs
  • Literal translation: To put the plow before the oxen
  • Meaning: To put the cart before the horse.
• Peigner la girafe
  • Literal translation: To comb the giraffe
  • Meaning: To engage in useless, lengthy, and unproductive work.

Social & Relationship Dynamics

• Quand les poules auront des dents
  • Literal translation: When hens have teeth
  • Meaning: When pigs fly (i.e., never).
• Revenir à ses moutons
  • Literal translation: To return to one’s sheep
  • Meaning: To get back to the point/subject at hand.
• Avoir des papillons dans le ventre
  • Literal translation: To have butterflies in the stomach
  • Meaning: To feel nervous or excited (often due to love).
• Devenir une bête noire
  • Literal translation: To become a black beast
  • Meaning: To become someone’s pet peeve, nemesis, or object of aversion.
• Être le dindon de la farce
  • Literal translation: To be the turkey of the joke
  • Meaning: To be the laughingstock or the dupe of a situation.
• Traiter quelqu’un comme un poisson rouge
  • Literal translation: To treat someone like a goldfish
  • Meaning: To assume someone has zero short-term memory.
• Vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué
  • Literal translation: To sell the bear’s skin before killing it
  • Meaning: To count your chickens before they hatch.
• Courir deux lièvres à la fois
  • Literal translation: To chase two hares at the same time
  • Meaning: To try to do two things at once (and likely fail at both).

Can you add another expression in the comments?