A language learners’ forum

Often times I have trouble deciphering expressions in French, such as the following:

mis à l'écart
prendre tous leurs sens
à contre-pied
fait d'armes
point d'orgue
pour mémoire ... and my FAVORITE
des suites des (this one I haven't found in any dictionary, not even Le Petit Robert)
n'est guère surprenant

This is just a small list, of course. But this illustrates the type of two and three-word expressions that give me a hard time.

Any recommendations on dictionaries that would be good for this type of thing?

I just use wordreference for these. I find that to be the strength of the site. You can almost always find them as a discussion topic.

WordReference is very good.

This site has more detailed history and explanation for some expressions: http://www.expressio.fr/
"Bob" has many expressions and also some interesting compilations: http://www.languefrancaise.net/Bob/
For example, an enormous list of words and expressions dealing with drinking and drunkenness, and another huge list for money expressions.
Wiktionary will occasionally have things that the other places miss: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionn ... %99accueil

Another vote for wordereference. You can choose between dictionaries to use on the site itself, so you can get examples from more than just one.

I already use wordreference sometimes, and it's not that bad.

But sometimes, you have to go hunting through the forums for the meaning of certain expressions. And in those forums you have people arguing over what the phrase really means. While I'm sure they all mean well, who's to say whether they are right or wrong? So, in the end you walk away not really sure if you understood the expression.

So, that's where I'm at right now.

Just cross reference on linguee if you are not sure.

Also check out ReversoDictionary, which provides definitions and example sentences.

Reverso Context and Linguee are both great tools. I've found the former better for informal language, the latter better for higher-level written language.