Tire-larigot (at) : “À tire-larigot” is an expression that familiarly qualifies the fact of drinking a lot.
In the XNUMXth century, the writers Ronsard and Rabelais were already using it. The origin of the expression "tire-larigot" would come from the name of the Rigault, a bell of the cathedral of Rouen, very hard to set in motion, and whose ringers often drank, and a lot, to give themselves strength. , hence the expression "drink à tire la Rigault" (by the way, the expression "drink like a sonner" is also known) (see the origins of this expression below).
A variant: a prelate who liked to hear it paid the ringers of this bell handsomely, who then spent the money earned by drinking.
Drinking or eating a lot: drinking or eating a lot.
Kissing: making love without stopping.
The expression "à tire-larigot" seems to appear at the beginning of the XNUMXth century and was only associated at the time with the verb to drink.
Shooting would mean "to make a liquid come out of its container" and fired “all at once, all at once”. the only point of convergence concerning the term larigot is that he pointed to a small flute.
But the lack of certainty about the use of this word does not explain either why it is precisely larigot who was privileged in this expression.
The French grammarian, journalist and litterateur, Pierre-Marie Quitard (1792-1882) in his Etymological, historical and anecdotal dictionary of proverbs explains that in the cathedral of Rouen there was a very heavy bell named La Rigaud or Rigaude. due to its ten tons, it was extremely difficult to set in motion and sound. Its ringers (the beadles) being very quickly thirsty by the intense effort required to pull the strings, they had to quickly drink “à tire la Rigaud”, an expression which would then have been transformed into “à tire-larigot”.