- English translation
You can tell the quality of anything by looking at it, except tobacco; that you only find out once it's burning in the pipe.
- Literal wording
Everything [is judged] by looking, except tobacco, [which is judged] by the pipe bowl.
- Meaning and lesson
Most things can be sized up at a glance, with good and poor quality told apart by the eye alone. Tobacco is the exception: here دُخَّان means smoking tobacco, not smoke, and حَجَر is the pipe bowl, not a stone. Its worth stays hidden until packed into that bowl, lit, and tasted.
As an interpretive extension beyond its core sense about tobacco, the saying can point to anything whose true value cannot be read from its surface. In such cases, looks tell you little and a fair verdict requires hands-on trial, favoring testing through experience over judging by appearance.
- When it is used
Its core sense concerns judging tobacco, whose quality only smoking reveals. By interpretive extension, it may fit moments when someone rates something purely by looks, though its real quality shows only through use, tasting, or testing, as with goods, food, or materials whose merits are hidden.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: You can tell the quality of anything by looking at it, except tobacco; that you only find out once it's burning in the pipe.