We are going to teach you all the things you ever wanted to know about the basic French expression "C'est tiré par les cheveux". To be more precise, this includes a detailed guide of what it is and how to use it in everyday life with an audio example.In addition, we also added super useful stuff like literal meaning, dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio and more!
Translation : It's far fetched
Literal meaning : It's pulled by the hair
Register : Neutral - Basic
Slow
Normal
IPA : / sɛ tiʁe paʁ le ʃəvø /
If you want someone to come with you to the restaurant, there are two options: ask this person nicely or pull him/her by the hair. The first one seems easy while the second is much more complex and illogical (but also illegal...).
That's why we use "C'est tiré par les cheveux" to say "It's far fetched" a.k.a. "It's illogical / complex / unnatural". Because it's so illogical that you need to get pulled by the hair to understand it.
Let's say you are talking with someone about movies and this person tells you he/she didn't see "Inception". Then you spend the next 20 minutes trying to explain the entire story.
Once you finish, chances are that the other person will look at you with puffy eyes and say "Wow... c'est tiré par les cheveux". (Wow... that's far-fetched).
If you want to impress people, instead of the expression explained above, you can use "C'est capillotracté".
What is that? In Latin "Capillus" is "Hair" and "Tractatus" is "To pull". So "C'est capillotracté" is a fancy (and funny) way to say "C'est tiré par les cheveux."
Dialogue
Ce film est vraiment bizarre !
This movie is really weird!
Oui ! C'est tiré par les cheveux !
Yes! It's pulled by the hair
Totally!
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