Menu
Are you ready to learn everything you ever wanted to know about the basic idiom “J’ai le cafard”?
To be clear, this includes a full definition of what it is and how to use it in a dialogue with an audio example. And because we want to help you on your learning journey, we also added super useful stuff like synonyms, dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio and more!
In addition, you can find our others idioms tutorials on this page and the ultimate list of all our French words content on this page. Have fun!
It literally means:
Introduced by Charles Baudelaire in 1857 in “Les Fleurs du mal” this expression designates dark thoughts that can settle in the head, just like cockroaches in a house.
You can use it to talk about how you feel: “Je m’en vais, j’ai le cafard.” (I’m leaving, I got the blues.)
Or to ask someone about how he/she feels: “Tu vas bien ? On dirait que tu as le cafard.” (Are you ok? You seem to have the blues.)
