Tiré à quatre épingles

When Jules arrived at the picnic tiré à quatre épingles, wearing a suit and shiny leather shoes, people paused mid-bite into their sandwiches.  Someone whispered, “Did he think this was a job interview with the Queen?”  Even the ants avoided him; they clearly knew not to crawl on dry-clean-only fabric.  Jules was dressed so perfectly and precisely that it felt almost excessive or out of place for the informal occasion. That’s exactly the kind of situation where the expression applies: impeccably, perhaps overly, put together.

Note that "tiré" is a past participle used adjectivally in this expression, which is common in French. Past participles often function as adjectives and therefore agree in gender and number with the noun they describe. As a result, tiré can appear as tirée, tirés, or tirées, depending on who or what it refers to.

Origin

Take a square piece of fabric. If you want it stretched nice and tight over a surface, you only need four pins - one in each corner. Voilà! Smooth, wrinkle-free, and ready to impress.

That simple trick might just be where the expression got its start: a garment that’s tiré à quatre épingles (literally, “pulled with four pins”) is perfectly fitted. The phrase first appeared at the end of the 17th century, but even a century earlier, people were already saying someone in well-fitted clothes was bien tiré (“well pulled”). Just think of hose and breeches, those tight-fitting leg garments worn by nobles and bourgeois types.  No one wanted a saggy stocking ruining the look.

Why four pins? Good question. “Four” often implies the maximum effort or ideal result in French expressions, as in monter les marches quatre à quatre (taking stairs four at a time) or se plier en quatre (bending over backwards - literally “folding oneself into four”).

Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, the expression was a compliment, used for someone dressed with style and symmetry. These days, though, it’s often tinged with irony, more likely to describe someone who looks a little too polished, the kind of person who might iron their socks or coordinate their umbrella with their shoelaces.

Examples

Il est toujours tiré à quatre épingles, même pour aller acheter du pain.
He's always dressed up, even just to go buy bread.

Elle est arrivée à l'entretien tirée à quatre épingles, prête à faire bonne impression.
She arrived at the interview impeccably dressed, ready to make a good impression.