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.[1]

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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. (chiefly in the negative) To compare; to be even remotely of the same quality, skill, etc. as another. [from mid 16th c.]

   The old computer just doesn't hold a candle to the latest models.

   • 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:

     But not a soul in Flychett could hold a candle to Yeobright.

   • 1908, Jerome K. Jerome, The Philosopher's Joke‎:

     "I know, dear, it is I," his thin wife answered with a meek smile. "I was beautiful, there was no doubt about it, when you married me."
     "You were, my dear," agreed her husband: "As a girl few could hold a candle to you."

   • 1921, Gene Stratton-Porter, Her Father's Daughter‎:

     “ […] Speaking of pretty girls, my sister, Eileen, is a pretty girl. She is a downright beautiful girl.”
     “Yes,” said Donald, “she is, but she can’t hold a candle to you. How did she look when she was your age?”

   • 2023 December 14, Pearse Anderson, “‘Lonely, gray and being actively colonized by corporations’: we tried the McDonald’s spinoff, CosMc’s”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     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.

• hold a candle for

• “not hold a candle to” (US) / “not hold a candle to” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “hold a candle to, not”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, →ISBN.