Découvrir le pot aux roses

Découvrir le pot aux roses
Share / Tweet / Pin Me!

Informal French Expression

Meaning to find out a secret, uncover a plot
Literally to discover the pot of roses
Register informal
Pronunciation French sound files [day koo vreer leu po to roz]
IPA   [de ku vʁiʁ lə po to roz]

Usage notes: The rose as a symbol of a secret dates back to Greek mythology, when Aphrodite gave her son a rose, and Eros entrusted it to Harpocrates, the God of silence. Romans decorated their banquet rooms and party halls with roses, to remind attendees that everything that happened there was sub rosa, literally "under the rose," meaning "in secret."

So the idiomatic French expression découvrir le pot aux roses means to find out a secret:, or perhaps – given that a pot of roses has multiple flowers – many secrets.

Par exemple…

Ce n’était pas facile, mais j’ai enfin découvert le pot aux roses.   It wasn’t easy, but I finally found out the secret.

Variation: dévoiler le pot aux roses

Misspelling / Holorime: le poteau rose (literally, “the pink pillar”)

 Related lessons

 Share / Tweet / Pin Me!

Découvrir le pot aux roses

  Lawless French Files:  

Stay up to date with Lawless French

Questions about French?

 Visit the Progress with Lawless French Q+A forum to get help from native French speakers and fellow learners.

More Lawless French

 Subscribe to my twice-weekly newsletter.

Support Lawless French

  This free website is created with love and a great deal of work.

If you love it, please consider making a one-time or monthly donation.

Your support is entirely optional but tremendously appreciated.

Leave a Reply