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à ne savoir qu'en faire. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
à ne savoir qu'en faire, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
à ne savoir qu'en faire in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /a n(ə) sa.vwaʁ k‿ɑ̃ fɛʁ/
Adverb
à ne savoir qu’en faire
- more than one knows what to do with, more than one can shake a stick at (a great number or amount of)
- Les Mirabeau ont de l’argent à ne savoir qu’en faire ― The Mirabeaus have more money than they know what to do with.
Usage notes
- The adverbial pronoun en is sometimes placed after ne instead of que:
- à n'en savoir que faire
- With this word-order, the pronoun que is sometimes replaced with quoi:
- à n'en savoir quoi faire
- Though savoir is one of the few French verbs that does not necessarily require the use of pas along with ne to be negated, it is quite common for it to be included in this locution:
- à ne pas savoir qu'en faire.
- Similarly, the quasi-negative element plus is often added, with our without the shifting of en mentioned above:
- à ne plus savoir qu'en faire
- à n'en plus savoir que faire
- à ne plus en savoir que faire
- Not to be confused with such phrases as:
- ne (pas) savoir que faire / ne (pas) savoir quoi faire (“to be undecided; or, to be crestfallen”)
- ne (pas) savoir que faire pour (“to have put all of one's resources toward a delicate undertaking”)
- ne (pas) savoir que faire de (“to be embarrassed about; to find useless or have no use for”)
- etc.