{"id":24519,"date":"2026-03-20T14:58:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=24519"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:58:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:58:49","slug":"mouchard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=24519","title":{"rendered":"Mouchard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the words that came up last night in the French conversation group was <strong>mouchard<\/strong>, which means an <strong>informant<\/strong> and various other things. I thought I&#8217;d look into it in more detail here.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/7572839@N05\/51311449644\/in\/photolist-2mbdAjh-9LFfu1-2nRBEZq-SB6C74-2qGsNZu-2rGJ2se-2njvmdp-2n1pEp7-2n6gDEy-BbyF3f-2qsiCeW-U1th8z-2mMxpT3-f4qhYe-2rTMkRJ-2o1xqef-4nd6Fi-W7MfAF-2crjZwk-ob1vdB-9A49PJ-2gSFP6J-2mRCseh-9A4g87-8My5f1-2pHPGjV-75wEb4-2kc6jRx-nxVEWR-2qHuGiq-2nNyevT-2m1hs1F-2kZ1N6Z-2mdVxxH-2rEEZkc-2rm3d4V-JEx9qX-2hFXd2a-fNCzH3-fNkZWH-28e6Hnn-UjKA7J-fNkQie-MDwnY9-fNkPsF-2m8kqYV-2ohmiU6-fNCmxA-2rzB21N-2p7tqMK\" title=\"Histoire de moucharder\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51311449644_5faf8b906f_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"298\" alt=\"Histoire de moucharder\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mouchard<\/strong> [mu.\u0283a\u0281] can mean:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a snitch, grass or tell-tale (<em>police informant<\/em>) &#8211; also known as <strong>indic<\/strong>, <strong>cafteur<\/strong> or <strong>cafard<\/strong> in French<\/li>\n<li>a bug (<em>hidden microphone<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>a spyhole or peephole<\/li>\n<li>a tachograph (<em>device that records the distance and time traveled by a vehicle<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>(a piece of) spyware<\/li>\n<li>a spyplane<\/li>\n<li>a black box, flight recorder<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It comes from <strong>mouche<\/strong> (a fly, bullseye, <em>historically<\/em>: a spy employed by the ancien r\u00e9gime to seek out subversive ideas) and <strong>-ard<\/strong> (<em>pejorative suffix<\/em>), from Middle French <em>mousche<\/em> (a fly), from Old French <em>m(o)usche<\/em> (a fly) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/mouchard#French\">source<\/a>], from Latin <em>musca<\/em> (a fly, an inquisitive or prying person) , from Proto-Indo-European <em>*mu(s)\/*mews-<\/em> (fly). Words from the same roots include <strong>midge<\/strong> in English and <strong>M\u00fccke<\/strong> (midge, gnat, crane fly, mosquito) in German [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/musca#Latin\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Related words include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>mouchardage<\/strong> = informing, grassing, ratting<\/li>\n<li><strong>moucharder<\/strong> = to rat (on), to tell tales<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The French word <strong>mouchard<\/strong> has also been borrowed into English, and means an undercover investigator or a police spy, especially in a French-speaking country, or an inverted compass hanging above the captain&#8217;s bed. The activity of such people is known <strong>mouchardism<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/mouchard#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Other fly-related expressions in French include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>faire mouche<\/strong> = to hit the bullseye, to come off, to hit home, to hit the nail on the head<\/li>\n<li><strong>mouche de coche<\/strong> = back-seat driver (person who pretends to be useful by offering unsolicited advice or by running around without actually doing any work)<\/li>\n<li><strong>pattes de mouche<\/strong> = scrawl, chicken scratch (illegible handwriting)<\/li>\n<li><strong>prendre la mouche<\/strong> = to get offended, to get in a huff, to fly off the handle [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/mouche#French\">source<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Are there interesting equivalents of <strong>mouchard<\/strong> in other languages?<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5001128073855040\"\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- Blog horizontal --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:block\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5001128073855040\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"1685480124\"\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the words that came up last night in the French conversation group was mouchard, which means an informant and various other things. I thought I&#8217;d look into it in more detail here. Mouchard [mu.\u0283a\u0281] can mean: a snitch, grass or tell-tale (police informant) &#8211; also known as indic, cafteur or cafard in French [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,116,10,15,27,34,45,78],"tags":[164,158,338,138,589,590,588,281,163],"class_list":["post-24519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-german","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-french","category-old-french","category-proto-indo-european","category-words-and-phrases","tag-english","tag-etymology","tag-french","tag-language","tag-mouchard","tag-moucharder","tag-mouche","tag-omniglot","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24519"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24522,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24519\/revisions\/24522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}