Les croque-morts n'ontpas toujours la tête de l'emploi

n. f.

1. Avoir la tête de l'emploi (iron.): To 'look the part'. Les croque-morts n'ontpas toujours la tête de l'emploi, c'est souvent des rigolos! Undertakers aren't always the mournful buggers we expect them to be!

2. Faire une drôle de tête: To look sour and discontented. Faire la tête à quelqu'un: To sulk.

3. Faire la mauvaise tête: To be 'pig-headed', to be obstreperous and reluctant to comply.

4. Avoir ses têtes: To 'have one's (little) favourites', to let oneself be ruled by likes and dislikes where relationships at work are concerned.

5. Avoir une tête à coucher dehors avec un billet de logetnent: To have an 'ugly mug', to have an unattractive face (in fact, to have the kind of features that would even get you turned a way from a welfare hostel).

6. Faire un prix à la tête du client: To quote a price according to the likely means of a customer. Au garage, lesprix sont un peu à la tête du client! If you drive a Rolls, they'll charge the earth for repairs!

7. Tête de pipe: Portrait-photograph. J'ai vu sa tête de pipe dans le canard! I've seen his mug somewhere in a paper!

8. Tête de¼! (insult intensifier): You bloody¼! Tête de courge, va! You blithering idiot!

9. Tête de lard (also: tête de cochon, tête de mule): Pig-headed character.

10. Affaire tête de lard (pol.): Dead-end enquiry, one where witnesses and accused alike make the police's job more arduous by refusing to co-operate.

11. Se payer la tête de quelqu'un: To 'take the piss out of someone', to 'take the mickey', to poke fun at someone.

12. Etre tombé sur la tête: To be 'bonkers', 'potty', to be mad. T'es tombé sur la tête, quoi?! You crazy in the head?!

13. Piquer une tête dans le bouillon:

  a To 'take a header', to dive into the water.

  b (fig.): To 'go under', to become bankrupt.

14. Petite tête! (jocular form of address): Salut, petite tête! Mornin' mate! Alors, comment ça va, petite tête?! Well, how's tricks?!

15. Cause à mon cul, ma tête est malade! (sarcastic retort): 'Get knotted'—I don't want to hear what you've got to say!

16. La tête et lesjambes: The combination of brains and brawn. (The expression courir avec la tête et les jambes originates from the racing cyclist's slang and refers to competitors who use critical judgement when exerting physical effort. In the 1960s, a television quiz-cum-competition with that name teamed up scholars and sportsmen to compete for prizes.)

17. Tenir la tête (Gambling slang): To act as judge and arbiter at the tables. (August Le Breton in his L 'ARGOT CHEZ LES VRAIS DE VRAI explains that this 'refereeing' activity is often given to a 'cleaned-out' player by a gambling baron; the position carries a small commission on stakes.)

18. Tête d'oreiller (corr. taie d'oreiller): Pillowcase.