Literal Translation
To give one’s tongue to the cat
Actual Meaning
To give up/be stumped
Etymology
This idiom used to be ‘jeter sa langue au chien’, back when one would only throw leftovers to the dog. It therefore meant one no longer wanted to look for the answer to the question. It. then morphed into ‘donner sa langue au chat’ in the 19th century, when cats were considered to be the guardians of great secrets. Their word would therefore be valuable and wise, and it may have meant that by giving them one’s tongue/ability to speak, they might give us the answer to a riddle.