Today’s word is for my friend Alicia, in Angleterre.* She taught me a verb that I felt sure I knew par coeur* (in reality, I knew the half of it). "Asticot" is a French noun that I hear almost daily around our home–what with two children who rarely cease d’asticoter* and their father who continually reminds them to "arretez de bouger comme des asticots!"*

asticoter (ah-stee-ko-tay) verb
  1. to provoke, irritate; to needle, to get at; (Alicia’s version: to maggot!)  2. to fidget

There is also the noun "un asticot" which means "maggot," as well as a funny adjective, "asticotable" or "that which can be needled or provoked".

Expression:
gigoter / bouger comme un asticot = to wriggle or wiggle like a maggot, to fidget

Citation du Jour:
…l’égalité, la seule égalité en ce monde, l’égalité devant l’asticot. …equality, the only equality in this world of ours: equality in the presence of the maggot.—Jean Henri Fabre

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*References:  le timbre (m) = stamp; Angleterre (f) = England; par coeur = by heart; sur terre = on earth

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Words in a French Life: "…a heart-winning collection from an American woman raising two very French children with her French husband in Provence, carrying on a lifelong love affair with the language."
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