péter les plombs - Mot du Jour

to blow a fuse - French expression

Part of Mots Du Jour | French Idiomatic Expressions

What does the French expression ‘péter les plombs’ mean? How is it used in a sentence? How do you say ‘to blow a fuse’? Listen to Anne’s audio below.

péter les plombs - to break or to pass wind (to fart, really) the fuses. péter les plombs is a familiar French expression, I wouldn’t use it everywhere. In everyday French, péter les plombs means ‘to blow a fuse’, ‘to lose it, to go nuts.

A variant is ‘sauter les plombs’.

• « Entre la crise, le confinement, s’occuper des gosses, le ménage et le télétravail, elle a pété les plombs. »
• “Between the crisis, being confined, having to take care of the kids, the house work, and working from home, she blew a fuse.”

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