à couper au couteau

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French

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Etymology

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Compare English you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /a ku.pe o ku.to/
  • Audio:(file)

Adjective

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à couper au couteau (invariable)

  1. (informal, figuratively, of a fog) very dense, very thick, thick as a pea soup
    un brouillard à couper au couteaua pea-souper
    • 2010, Michel Castaigna, La Dictée miraculeuse[1], page 37:
      Deux heures du matin, se disait-il, moins dix degrés, un brouillard à couper au couteau, un quartier sans intérêt, un mot de passe débile, quelques sous-officiers et sentinelles sans la moindre motivation et cinq cents troufions qui roupillent en attendant le jus tiède du matin [...]
      Two o'clock in the morning, he thought, minus ten degrees, a pea-souper of a fog, nothing interesting in the area, a stupid password, a few NCOs and sentries who had not a shred of motivation, and five-hundred squaddies dozing off as they waited for their warm juice in the morning []
  2. (informal, figuratively, of an accent) very heavy, very thick, very strong; that you could cut with a knife
    • 2005, Julie Poirier, Au hasard des pistes : Les deux Amériques à vélo[2], →ISBN, page 118:
      La manière de parler des Chiliens nous réserve bien des surprises : outre un accent à couper au couteau, ils mangent les mots et ne prononcent aucun S, et ils émaillent leurs phrases de mots inconnus pour nous : huahua – le bébé –, pololo –, le petit ami –...
      The way Chileans speak still has quite a few suprises in store for us: apart from an accent you could cut with a knife, they mumble and do not pronounce their s's, and they pepper their speech with words unknown to us: huahua (baby), pololo (boyfriend)...

See also

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