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noun, masculine

petit juif

/pə.ti ʒɥif/

noun, masculine/pə.ti ʒɥif/plural: petits juifs

funny bone

From petit (“small”) + juif (“Jew”). Allegedly the expression came from the time when most cloth merchants in France were Jewish, and would regularly hurt their arm on that spot against a bench while measuring fabric by wrapping it around an arm as an 'anthropomorphic' length measure, the aune (compare ell).