beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Meaning: What one person finds beautiful another may not.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “I think the old car is gorgeous; beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: The idea is ancient, but the English wording was popularized by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford's novel Molly Bawn (1878).
Equivalents in other languages
- Arabic: القرد بعين أمه غزال (al-qird bi-ʿayn ummihi ghazāl) — literally: A monkey in its mother's eyes is a gazelle
More idioms — Body & Senses
- play into someone's hands — To act in a way that unintentionally helps an opponent.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
- Couper les cheveux en quatre — To over-analyze or split hairs.
- Se regarder le nombril — To be self-centered or narcissistic.
- Tomaten auf den Augen haben — To be oblivious to what's right in front of you.
More English idioms
- cut your coat according to your cloth — Live within your means.
- a guilty conscience needs no accuser — Guilty people give themselves away.
- big deal — Said sarcastically to mean something is not important at all.
- make a hash of something — To do something very badly.
- play dumb — To pretend not to know or understand something.
- all hell breaks loose — Chaos and disorder suddenly erupt.