- English translation
Pepper is sold by the ounce, but lime goes by the hundredweight.
- Literal wording
The pepper by the ounce, and the lime by the hundredweight.
- Meaning and lesson
The proverb praises a darker, brownish complexion. Pepper is dark yet precious, sold in small, carefully weighed amounts; white lime, the building material used in mortar, is plentiful and sold in bulk. The traditional weights mark this small-versus-bulk contrast rather than exact measures. Darkness signals preciousness, and whiteness ordinariness.
More broadly, the saying overturns the assumption that pale coloring is automatically superior, suggesting that worth depends on rarity and quality rather than lightness. Because it still ranks people by skin tone, answering one color preference with another, it touches on colorism and does not escape judging appearance by color.
- When it is used
Use it to compliment someone with a darker, brown complexion, or to push back gently when fair skin is treated as automatically more attractive. The pepper-and-lime image makes the point with humor, but because it compares skin tones, use it with care.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Pepper is sold by the ounce, but lime goes by the hundredweight.