Sometimes a word is enough to express your thoughts. But how do you choose it from among the 60,000 terms that make up French dictionaries? You have to know how to match accuracy and subtlety. Especially when you are irritated. Le Figaro gives you five to expertly share your annoyance.
Cannulant
There is always one. One to say nothing, but to speak all the same. Whatever the place, at work, on the street, in the evening, there is always something to talk about. About time, love, life ... This individual is, so to speak, "cannulant", that is to say "annoying by his unwelcome remarks", can we read in Le Trésor de la langue française. The adjective comes from the name "cannula", probably by allusion to the unpleasant nature of the enemas administered with this object ... This is very telling!
Mephitic
Imagine the scene. You are walking quietly on the street. The sun is high in the sky, not a cloud in sight. The birds are singing, you are enjoying the good weather. When you get a foul odor. You accelerate the pace, but impossible to escape it. It sticks to your skin. This is called a “mephitic” odor, “whose exhalation is harmful, toxic, sometimes stinky, unpleasant”. Stendhal used it in his Memoirs to speak of the Valence courthouse: “The mephitic air drove me out of it. Judges who spend their lives in this unhealthy air have never read a fan article chemistry dictionary. ”
Bastringue
Can't close your eye. It is four o'clock in the morning but your neighbors have decided to extend their party. Once, twice, three you went to see them, but nothing to do. You are dealing, so to speak, with people who make "bastringue", that is to say "din, uproar", as Céline wrote in Death on credit . Originally, the word is used first to designate a "popular air", a "ball, dancing cabaret". It was by extension that the term took on this meaning. It should be noted that in slang, the "bastringue" designated "the case containing the objects necessary for an escape, and that the inmate entered the rectum".
Desperate
You have to make a decision, but suddenly it's hesitation. Your colleague is unable to bring himself to give you a fixed opinion. Like a pendulum, a blow, it leans to the right, a blow, it leans to the left. It is what we call "weak-willed". He has only "fleeting intentions and remains incapable of making decisions and taking action". The word derives from "inclination", itself derived from the Latin verb velle "to want".
Captious
This "friend" promised you, everything will be fine. Once you give the money, it will pay you back everything ... or not. Months will pass and you will never see the color of your currency again. This "friend" was a "captious". This is what we call the one who “tends to deceive, who seduces with beautiful, false appearances”. The term is borrowed from the Latin captiosus attested to in the sense of "misleading" from Cicero, as we can read in Le Trésor de la langue française.
