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Are you ready to find out everything you have to know about the basic expression “Il a filé à l’anglaise”?
To be more precise, it includes a complete guide of what it is and how you can use it in a dialogue with an audio example. Not to mention the useful informations we sprinkled like slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example, literal meaning and more!
Oh and more of these expressions are available on this page and all our French words tutorials on this page. Wish you a good learning!
Slow pronunciation
Normal pronunciation
To be more precise, it means: “To leave discreetly, like a thief“.
But why “English style” then? Because of… France vs. England legendary rivalry. The most popular explanation being that French people used it as a revenge for the British expression “to take a French leave“.
To be fair, there are other theories about where this idiom is coming from. For example, the old French verb “Anglaiser” means “To steal” and we think people said “Filer à l’anglaise” to say “Leave like a thief“.
Let’s imagine your brother was supposed to wash the dishes, but he “disappeared” silently. Then you would say “Il a filé à l’Anglaise !” (He left English style!).
And would probably have to wash the dishes instead, while thinking about how you can “take an English leave“.