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à couper au couteau. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
à couper au couteau, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
à couper au couteau in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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French
Etymology
Compare English you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.
Pronunciation
Adjective
à couper au couteau (invariable)
- (informal, figuratively, of a fog) very dense, very thick, thick as a pea soup
- un brouillard à couper au couteau ― a pea-souper
2010, Michel Castaigna, La Dictée miraculeuse, 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
- (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, →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)...
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