Word.ws English Dictionary

hold a candle

Syllables: hold a can·dleUK/ˌhəʊ̯ld ə ˈkan.dəl/US/ˌhoʊ̯ld ə ˈkæn.dəl/

hold a candle verb: to compare; to be even remotely of the same quality, skill, etc. as another.

Verb

hold a candle (third-person singular simple present holds a candle, present participle holding a candle, simple past and past participle held a candle)

  1. To compare; to be even remotely of the same quality, skill, etc. as another.
    • The old computer just doesn't hold a candle to the latest models.
    • But not a soul in Flychett could hold a candle to Yeobright.1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878, →OCLC, book I (The Three Women), page 105

hold a candle meaning in Thai

hold a candle in Thai

be even remotely of the same quality
เทียบติด tîiap-dtìt, เทียบได้ tîiap-dâai

Examples of hold a candle in a sentence

  • Thirty miles north of CosMc’s, the McDonald’s No 1 Store Museum once stood, a replica of the company’s stunning post-war sci fi Googie architecture that CosMc’s’ retro-details barely hold a candle to.2023 December 14, Pearse Anderson, “‘Lonely, gray and being actively colonized by corporations’: we tried the McDonald’s spinoff, CosMc’s”...
  • “Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google,” he [Elon Musk] wrote.2026 April 23, Cade Metz, “Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s Epic Fight Heads to Court”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Forms of hold a candle

third-person singular presentholds a candle
present participleholding a candle
past participleheld a candle
pastheld a candle

Origin of hold a candle

From the custom of apprentices to a master holding a candle so that the master could see more clearly. The negative version implies that a person who was not fit even for such a simple task was worthless.

Questions about hold a candle

What does hold a candle mean?
Hold a candle means to compare; to be even remotely of the same quality, skill, etc. as another.
What is hold a candle in Thai?
Hold a candle in Thai is เทียบติด (tîiap-dtìt), เทียบได้ (tîiap-dâai). See Hold a candle meaning in Thai.
How do you use hold a candle in a sentence?
Thirty miles north of CosMc’s, the McDonald’s No 1 Store Museum once stood, a replica of the company’s stunning post-war sci fi Googie architecture that CosMc’s’ retro-details barely hold a candle to.
What part of speech is hold a candle?
Hold a candle is a verb.
How do you pronounce hold a candle?
Hold a candle is pronounced /ˌhəʊ̯ld ə ˈkan.dəl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of hold a candle?
The past tense of hold a candle is held a candle.

Words near hold a candle in the dictionary

  1. holcorpids
  2. Holcroft
  3. Holcrofts
  4. hold
  5. Hold 'em
  6. hold a candle
  7. hold a candle for
  8. hold a grudge
  9. hold a gun to someone's head
  10. hold a light
  11. hold a mirror to

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold a candle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hold a candle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hold a candle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hold_a_candle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.