# faire un pied de nez



## Chris25

Hi everybody! 
Could someone please tell me what _faire un pied de nez_ means? I don't have any context unfortunately. I just came across it and was wondering what it meant. It's just says it's one of the _expressions fleuries avec les noms des parties du corps._ Since it's literal, I don't think i should even attempt the translation. Thanks for any help.


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## Chris25

Ok, i found it. _To mock_. I would very much appreciate an example if anyone could provide me with one. Thanks alot!


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## Léa123

faire un pied de nez à quelqu'un: to thumb one's nose at someone.

faire un pied de nez à la tradition/aux conventions: to cock a snook at tradition/at conventions. 

Hope it helps


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## Maurice92

It's a gesture of the hand, fully open, vertical, all the finger well separated, the thumb just on the nose. It was used , when I was young, mainly between the children to say "I won"  or "I don't care of what you say". I don't think it's still used, but I may ask my grandchildren.


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## Topsie

I believe another (old-fashioned) expression is "to cock a snook"!


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## wildan1

_thumb your nose at_ (somebody, something) in AE. 

_cock a snook_ is only BE--it sounds very funny to an AE ear, but doesn't mean anything!


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## SNTB99

just say *mockery, or gibe*
may it help you get the point


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## victoria1

Faire un pied de nex à quelqu'un: to thumb one's nose at somebody or to scoff at somebody.


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## cocomax

What about _taunt _or _chaff _(as verb or noun)?


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## sound shift

Does it involve a physical thumbing of the nose, or is it metaphorical (or can it be either?)


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## Chris25

It can be either. You could make the gesture or use the phrase. (But it's usually made by small kids.)


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## sound shift

wildan1 said:


> _thumb your nose at_ (somebody, something) in AE.
> 
> _cock a snook_ is only BE--it sounds very funny to an AE ear, but doesn't mean anything!



Hmm... Funny you should say that, wildan, as the expression is in the "Columbia Guide to Standard American English": http://www.bartleby.com/68/4/1304.html


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## wildan1

sound shift said:


> Hmm... Funny you should say that, wildan, as the expression is in the "Columbia Guide to Standard American English": http://www.bartleby.com/68/4/1304.html


 
Maybe you would say that if you were Kenneth Wilson and you were born in 1923 as was the person cited (that makes him 85 years old), but otherwise I have never heard this said by anyone in the US!


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## johntheclark

to cock a snook (at someone) ; to thumb one's nose


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## Lizamichael

Bonjour,

Je comprends que "faire un pied de nez" se traduit par "to thumb one's nose". Mais comment peut-on traduire cela quand cette expression est utilisée métaphoriquement comme par exemple:

"Faire un pied de nez à la morosité générale"

qui ne me semble pas être équivalente à "moquer" ou "ne faire aucun cas de" mais semble plus proche de "résister à coup d'espièglerie pour combattre la morosité générale".

"To laugh off the general gloomy mood" ne me semble pas prendre "the general gloomy mood" au sérieux, alors que dans mon esprit "faire un pied de nez à la morosité générale" prend la morosité au sérieux mais néanmoins décide de la combattre avec espièglerie.

Est-ce que "to thumb one's nose" peut correspondre à cette idée ou y a-t-il une meilleure traduction?

Merci d'avance


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## sound shift

Lizamichael said:


> Est-ce que "to thumb one's nose" peut correspondre à cette idée ou y a-t-il une meilleure traduction?


Alors, notre dictionnaire admet "to thumb one's nose at society", lequel est un usage métaphorique, donc je dirais que "to thumb one's nose at the general gloomy mood" est bien possible.

En tant qu'Anglais assez âgé, je me sens tenté par "to put two fingers up at the general gloomy mood" mais (1) l'expression est d'un registre légèrement plus vulgaire que "to thumb one's nose ...", et (2) ce n'est que les Anglais âgés qui emploient le geste en question, les plus jeunes ayant adopté un geste qui n'emploie qu'un seul doigt - donc on risquerait de ne pas se faire comprendre.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

The English eqivalents in #3 are accurate, as is the description in #4 (but I think both are used in either of the contexts mentioned); many people wag their fingers while making the gesture.


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## Lizamichael

Pourriez-vous m'indiquer le niveau de language que je sois sûre de mon coup dans ma traduction? Formel ou au contraire argotique?


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## Itisi

C'est plutôt formel.


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## midatlantic

Easy to believe that cocking snooks is especially English English, but thumbing one's nose is very likely universal English, both literally and figuratively. To be super-local (Lancashire dialect), but it's fun, here are Noah and Sam in one of Stanl;ey Holloways's monologues: "Sam cocked a snook at Noah, and Noah made long bacon at Sam". "Long bacon" is a double snook, so to speak: you thumb your nose with both hands, one in front the other. and wiggle all your fingers. The analogy with a side of bacon, or pork belly,  is obvious if you think about it.


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## luluswass

I hope we can all do better at "thumb one's nose at" - sure, it's the most literal translation, but it IS old-fashioned in North American English, just Google it against possible synonyms (in context). 

As for "cock a snook," I can assure you this is UK English and also very old-fashioned. Check out comedy podcast "Joan and Jericha," where the expression is used to make fun of a certain age of lady. I'm that age, I live in the UK, but I would never use this expression when translating. Translating is subjective, but come on people!!! We can do a lot better than this. Just do some research into single word equivalents.


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## Lizamichael

Hi @luluswass 

What would be your preferred suggestion? Not being a native makes me hesitant to let me coldly choose from Google.

Thanks in advance


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## luluswass

[...] To find something less clunky than "to cock a snook" or "thumb one's nose at," I suggest using a UK or US English thesaurus, respectively. For example, I just took a quick look at Merriam-Webster for you, and they've got some nice synonyms on there and a bit of context too.


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## Keith Bradford

I don't see any difference in range between *cock a snook* and *thumb one's nose* -- both can be metaphorical or physical.  Both are relatively recent (post WW1) and both are current in modern English.  Their popularity has varied slightly in the period 1950-2010 but *cock a snook* has been consistently preferred over all individual variants of *thumb xxxxx nose* except for _thumb *his* nose_. However, all the *nose *variants combined are six times more popular than the single *snook *version.

That all applies to English published work as a whole.  Separate out British from American usage and you find that *snook *has fallen behind in Britain since 2007; it never gained a foothold in the USA.

For details, see Google Books Ngram Viewer.


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## luluswass

@Keith Bradford you're still just using those two expressions when there are tons of alternatives. "Look down on" is a great example - but again, it all depends on the context. It's subjective, but I still doubt you'd find many young people these days who'd use those and I haven't seen an actual child put thumb to nose for decades!


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## Laurent2018

Lizamichael said:


> "Faire un pied de nez à la morosité générale"



You could simply use "to laugh at"; dans ce cas précis, cela signifierait "se rire de" qui apporte une nuance d'effronterie à "se moquer de".


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## Keith Bradford

luluswass said:


> @Keith Bradford you're still just using those two expressions when there are tons of alternatives. "Look down on" is a great example - but again, it all depends on the context. It's subjective, but I still doubt you'd find many young people these days who'd use those and I haven't seen an actual child put thumb to nose for decades!





Laurent2018 said:


> You could simply use "to laugh at"; dans ce cas précis, cela signifierait "se rire de" qui apporte une nuance d'effronterie à "se moquer de".


Of course I'm "just using those two expressions" because I believe in translating precisely.  _Look down on_ and_ laugh at _are near-synonyms for people who believe that "near enough is good enough". I don't.

Had you said that _un pied de nez_ is ten times more common in French than _thumb one's nose_ is in English, I might have been more impressed.  However, there are fifteen English synonyms for thumbing one's nose, and I haven't done frequency searches on them all. When last researched, the gesture was familiar to 25-32% of people in the whole of the UK, a figure comparable to that of all regions of France. (Source: Morris et al. _Gestures, their origins and distribution_, Book Club Associates, London, 1979.)


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## le chat noir

Apparently both expressions have the same meaning and are used equally frequently in a symbolic sense (a cheeky statement/attitude), so what's wrong with a direct translation?


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## Locape

luluswass said:


> It's subjective, but I still doubt you'd find many young people these days who'd use those and I haven't seen an actual child put thumb to nose for decades!


The same in French, young people don't say it anymore, but it's still used in the figurative way, like @le chat noir said. The same in English, except 'to cock a snook' which isn't used in AE (post # 6 & 13).


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## Lizamichael

I was looking for the English idiomatic equivalent not another way around the idea like "look down" (regarder de haut) or "laughing off" (ne pas prendre au sérieux) which seem to me too far from the original sentence as I need to stay close to the gesture (le fameux "pied de nez") that goes with it (even though I understand that it is used more often.)
So I will stay with thumbing one's nose.

Thanks a lot to all of you.


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