Why do I need to know mouton à cinq pattes?

Because you might be confused why the French want a five-legged sheep.

What does it mean?

Mouton à cinq pattes – roughly pronounced moo-ton ah sank pat – technically translates as ‘sheep with five legs’.

Basically, the expression means something out of the ordinary or difficult to find, and it can be used for both objects and people.

The idea is that sheep don’t usually have five legs, so it would be unlikely that you encounter one.

When used to describe an object, a mouton à cinq pattes would be something rare or unique, like hidden treasure.

As for people, a person referred to this way would be exceptional in some way. In English, they might be referred to as a ‘pearl’ or a ‘gem’.

The expression was made popular by the 1954 film by Henri Verneuil, which bears the same name.

Usually the phrase carries a positive connotation, but sometimes it can be used sarcastically to describe something that is out of reach or hard to locate. 

For example, the French press used it to joke about president Emmanuel Macron’s long search for the perfect prime minister during the summer of 2024.

Use it like this

Après plusieurs semaines, il est clair que le président cherche le mouton à cinq pattes pour Matignon. – After several weeks, it is clear the President is searching in vain for a perfect person to be prime minister.

Le nouveau directeur est un véritable mouton à cinq pattes. Nous l’adorons et ne pouvons imaginer une meilleure option. – The new director is a real gem. We love him and can’t imagine a better option.