danser devant le buffet

ByFast French

The French idiom “danser devant le buffet” means to have no food or to have nothing to eat. Literally, it translates as “to dance in front of the sideboard.” This expression comes from a play on words dating back to the end of the 18th century. From the 16th to the 18th century, the verb “fringaler” mean “to dance.” Fringaler was a combination of “fringuer” which is mean to jump and of “galer” which mean to rejoice. And “la fringale” is a slangy expression meaning “hunger.” So the combination of “fringuer” and “galer” made “frangaler,” which was a pun based on “la fringale,” the hunger. Hence the idea of dancing before an empty buffet came to mean hunger in general.

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