- English translation
Every bean has someone to measure it.
- Literal wording
Every bean, and it has a measurer.
- Meaning and lesson
In its bare form, the saying holds that nothing escapes valuation: every item, even a single bean, has someone whose task is to gauge it, and that judgment fits the thing's own condition and worth rather than a single fixed scale.
The picture is of dry goods being measured out for trade. By naming one bean, about the smallest and humblest unit imaginable, the proverb stresses that even a trifling thing is weighed up, and that the appraisal answers to what the thing actually is.
- When it is used
Suited to remarks that something, however small, ordinary or modest, will still find someone to assess it on its own terms; the bean stands for any minor item whose worth is judged according to its particular state.
Cite or copy proverb
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