rouge

n. m.

1. Du rouge: Red wine. Vous prendrez bien un petit rouge? How about a glass of red wine? Gros rouge: 'Plonk', cheap and rough red wine. (The appellation du gros rouge qui tache gives a good idea of the coarse nature of this 'vino'.)

2. 'Commie', 'Red', Communist. Les rouges, c'est son obsession, il en voit partout! He seems obsessed with 'Reds under the bed' ideas!

3. Mettre le rouge: To 'kick up some aggro', to create a disturbance (usually through sheer physical violence. The expression le rouge est mis belongs either to the language of horseracing where it indicates that no more oncourse betting is possible, or to the world of T.V. and film productions where it means that a scene is being shot in a studio).