Why do I need to know à la sauvette?
Because you might hear someone use this when walking through a touristic part of France.
What does it mean?
À la sauvette - roughly pronounced ah lah sew-vet - is often translated to English as ‘on the sly’, but it goes a bit beyond that.
The phrase à la sauvette dates back to the turn of the century, but it has always been linked to street vendors who sell items without the proper permission or permits from authorities. If spotted by police, they would need to pack up their things and run away quickly and discreetly.
These days, you will mostly see à la sauvette in connection with rogue traders and street vendors. This would be written as vendeurs à la sauvette. You might describe the vendors who camp out in touris locations in France selling little trinkets and souvenirs (outside of a proper tourism shop) with this phrase.
You can also refer to unlicensed or unregulated taxis as les taxis à la sauvette.
Over time, the expression has extended to take on a more general meaning of doing something discreetly and hastily. For example, police might conduct a sensitive arrest in the middle of the night à la sauvette. You could even say that you left a party à la sauvette.
Use it like this
La police repousse de temps en temps les vendeurs à la sauvette hors du parc, mais ils reviennent toujours. - From time to time the police push the street vendors out of the park, but they always come back.
Je suis parti de la soirée à la sauvette après une dispute avec la personne qui m'accueillait. - I left the party quickly and quietly after an argument with my host.
Comments