- English translation
Like a pit of curing salted fish: a huge heap, and all of it reeking.
- Literal wording
Like the fesikh pool: plenty and stink.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying pictures the pit where fesikh, a pungent Egyptian salted fermented fish, is buried to cure: the more fish piled in, the worse the stench rising from it. Sheer quantity brings no benefit, only a heavier reek, so crowding and foulness grow together.
Applied to people, it scorns a group gathered in one spot whose numbers seem to multiply their filth or bad conduct. The speaker implies that such a crowd is worthless and repellent, and that adding more members only makes it worse.
- When it is used
Use it as a sharp, mocking remark about a crowded place or group seen as dirty or unpleasant, where numbers only add to the mess. Aimed at real people, it is a serious insult likening them to rotting fish; it suits informal, critical speech, not polite company.
- Region
- Egypt
- Register
- Colloquial; disparaging
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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