«زَيِّ بَرَاغِيتِ الْقَنْطَرَهْ عُرْيْ وِزَنْطَرَهْ»

Aimed at someone with no means who still puts on grand airs, the saying pictures a bare little creature leaping about as if it owned the place. The less such a person truly has, the noisier the show of importance.

It also needles the upstart who keeps pushing into company above his station, claiming a rank he has not earned. Likening him to a flea shrinks those pretensions to something tiny and irritating, making the line a pointed put-down.

Use it with open derision for a penniless braggart who inflates his importance and keeps turning up in others' circles. It targets pretension, not hardship alone, yet because it mocks poverty too, it can land as a harsh personal insult.