Literal Translation
To leek out??
Actual Meaning
To wait like a lemon
Etymology
A silly story, which takes us back to our veg patches. The assonance with the word ‘poireau’ in the verb ‘poireauter’ is indeed not insignificant. It is to this word that we owe our metamorphosis into vegetables every day that we waste time waiting. Derived from the old noun por (poireau), from the Latin porrum, the plant found in our markets was first used in the 17th century in the form ‘porreau’ before being distorted by Parisian speech.
It is in fact the inhabitants of the capital who are responsible for the alteration of the word ‘porreau’ to “poireau”. According to the Trésor de la Langue Française, this transformation was undoubtedly due to the influence of the term ‘poire’ (pear). However, we should not think that Parisians took their fellow citizens for fools. Some of them decided to split the difference and use both the word ‘poireau’ and its ancestor.
Far from always referring to the ‘long-leaved vegetable plant of the Liliaceae family’, the word “leek” also referred, in popular parlance, to ‘a wart’, ‘a police constable on duty’, and even… the male sexual organ. The vegetable was indeed used in a variety of expressions, including ‘se chatouiller le poireau’ (to tickle one’s leek) and ‘souffler dans le poireau’ (to blow on one’s leek). Ok, erotic parenthesis over!
The verb ‘poireauter’, which first appeared in the form ‘planter son poireau’ (19th century), means ‘to wait a long time’. The verb combines two images: that of a leek planted in the ground and that of the expression ‘rester planté’ (to remain planted), which means ‘to remain motionless’. So there’s nothing erotic about it.