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French Expression of the Day: Être à la bourre

The Local France
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French Expression of the Day: Être à la bourre
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

If you’re somebody who has a small (or big) problem with punctuality, then this French expression is for you.

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Why do I need to know être à la bourre?

If you don’t have time for a conversation but don’t want to be rude, or need to tell your cabbie to step on it, letting somebody know that you are à la bourre will quickly explain your predicament.

What does it mean?

Être à la bourre – roughly pronounced eh-truh ah la boh-rruh – translates exactly as "to be in the stuffing," which might sound a bit nonsensical. 

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To be à la bourre has little to do with with this basic meaning; it’s actually a colloquial way to say that you’re 'running late' or 'in a hurry', the two usually being related. It is typically used with the verb être (‘to be’).

The roots of this expression are a bit murky, but most experts believe that être à la bourre comes from a card game popular in the southwestern French region of Occitanie (around Toulouse and Montpellier), called "la borra" in the local Occitan language.

According to one theory, the player who was behind (and therefore losing money) was "a la borra," and this is how the expression made its way into everyday French.

Another has it that when someone was running late, the people waiting for them assumed that they had gotten caught up playing cards somewhere. Either way, être à la bourre eventually spread throughout the rest of France, and is heard all over the country today.

Before using this expression, you should keep in mind that être à la bourre, while not vulgar, is certainly familiar, so it’s probably more appropriate for a conversation with your co-worker than with your boss.

If you need to say that you’re running late more formally, you can explain that you’re en retard (‘late’) or that you’re pressé (‘in a hurry’).

Use it like this

Excuse-moi, il faut que je m'en aille, je suis vachement à la bourre. – Sorry, I have to go, I’m really running late.

Si on ne part pas maintenant, on va être à la bourre au travail. – If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late to work.

Essoufflé et tout rouge, il avait l’air d’être à la bourre. – Out of breath and flushed, he looked like he was in a hurry.

Je suis désolé d’être à la bourre, il y avait un bouchon affreux sur le périphérique. – Sorry for being late, there was an awful traffic jam on the ring road.

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