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French expression of the day: Clin d'œil

The Local France
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French expression of the day: Clin d'œil
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond"

Wether you want to seduce someone or just acknowledge them, 'eye flashes' are usually a good way to go in French.

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Why do I need to know clin d'œil?

Because its meaning changes so much depending on the context (you don't want to mistake it for flirting if it's actually something quite different).

What does it mean?

Clin d'œil means 'wink of eye' - clin is French for 'wink' or 'flash' and d'œil means 'of eye' - and is the expression to use when talking about the universal gesture ;-).

 

Cligner is the French verb for 'to wink', but when you talk about winking at someone the right phrasing is 'to do an eye wink at someone' - faire un clin d'œil à quelqu'un.

Use it like this

clin d'œil as in the physical gesture of closing one eye can have somewhat of a sexual undertone, and whether it's appropriate depends on the relationship between the person doing the gesture and the one on the receiving end.

However the linguistic use of clin d'œil is not necessarily sexual.

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For example, Un clin d'œil à Barack Obama pour avoir fait confiance aux jeunes, translates better to 'A shoutout at Barack Obama for putting trust in young people' rather than 'A wink at..'.

In fact, depending on the context a clin d'œil can mean something closer to a 'nod to' or 'shoutout to' something or someone.

It can also be a wink of complacency or agreement. For example, if you, like many people in Marseille, did not want the Paris-Saint-Germain football club to win the Champions League final, you could say:

Petit clin d'œil à tous les Marseillais qui ne voulaient pas que le PSG gagne ! - Little shout-out to the people from Marseille who did not want the PSG to win!

En un clin d'œil also means 'in the blink of an eye' (very quickly) and sometimes French media use clin d'œil to say 'flash', or 'in brief', or 'quick look'.

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