"couper les cheveux en quatre" meaning in French

See couper les cheveux en quatre in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

IPA: /ku.pe le ʃ(ə).vø ɑ̃ katʁ/ Audio: LL-Q150 (fra)-LoquaxFR-couper les cheveux en quatre.wav
Etymology: Literally, “cut hair in four”. Compare Italian spaccare il capello in quattro. Etymology templates: {{m-g|cut hair in four}} “cut hair in four”, {{lit|cut hair in four}} Literally, “cut hair in four”, {{cog|it|spaccare il capello in quattro}} Italian spaccare il capello in quattro Head templates: {{fr-verb}} couper les cheveux en quatre
  1. (idiomatic) to split hairs Tags: idiomatic Related terms: se couper en quatre
    Sense id: en-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre-fr-verb-AVdU5Ftd Categories (other): French entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for couper les cheveux en quatre meaning in French (1.8kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "cut hair in four"
      },
      "expansion": "“cut hair in four”",
      "name": "m-g"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "cut hair in four"
      },
      "expansion": "Literally, “cut hair in four”",
      "name": "lit"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "it",
        "2": "spaccare il capello in quattro"
      },
      "expansion": "Italian spaccare il capello in quattro",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Literally, “cut hair in four”. Compare Italian spaccare il capello in quattro.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "couper les cheveux en quatre",
      "name": "fr-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "French",
  "lang_code": "fr",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "French entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "english": "Don't split hairs. You know what I'm getting at.",
          "text": "Ne coupe pas les cheveux en quatre. Tu sais où je veux en venir.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to split hairs"
      ],
      "id": "en-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre-fr-verb-AVdU5Ftd",
      "links": [
        [
          "split hairs",
          "split hairs"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) to split hairs"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "se couper en quatre"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ku.pe le ʃ(ə).vø ɑ̃ katʁ/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q150 (fra)-LoquaxFR-couper les cheveux en quatre.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav.ogg",
      "text": "Audio"
    }
  ],
  "word": "couper les cheveux en quatre"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "cut hair in four"
      },
      "expansion": "“cut hair in four”",
      "name": "m-g"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "cut hair in four"
      },
      "expansion": "Literally, “cut hair in four”",
      "name": "lit"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "it",
        "2": "spaccare il capello in quattro"
      },
      "expansion": "Italian spaccare il capello in quattro",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Literally, “cut hair in four”. Compare Italian spaccare il capello in quattro.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "couper les cheveux en quatre",
      "name": "fr-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "French",
  "lang_code": "fr",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "se couper en quatre"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "French entries with incorrect language header",
        "French idioms",
        "French lemmas",
        "French multiword terms",
        "French terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "French terms with audio links",
        "French terms with usage examples",
        "French verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "english": "Don't split hairs. You know what I'm getting at.",
          "text": "Ne coupe pas les cheveux en quatre. Tu sais où je veux en venir.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to split hairs"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "split hairs",
          "split hairs"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) to split hairs"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ku.pe le ʃ(ə).vø ɑ̃ katʁ/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q150 (fra)-LoquaxFR-couper les cheveux en quatre.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav/LL-Q150_%28fra%29-LoquaxFR-couper_les_cheveux_en_quatre.wav.ogg",
      "text": "Audio"
    }
  ],
  "word": "couper les cheveux en quatre"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable French dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.