can’t hold a candle to somebody

【字面理解】不能为某人举蜡烛

【英文解析】to be far less competent or have far less skills than someone else

【中文解析】远远不如;不能与……媲美

例句】① The Beatles were fantastic. Their music is still popular now. They were the greatest! Nobody has come along afterwards who can hold a candle to them.甲壳虫 乐队实在棒极了。他们的乐曲至今仍然流行。他们 是登峰造极的，后来一直没人能跟他们媲美。

② Michael Jordan, who played for the Chicago Bulls, set all sorts of records and won four world titles. Nobody can hold a candle to him.迈克尔?务丹，以前效力于芝加 哥公牛队。他创下了各种各样的记录，并且带领球队 四次夺取世界冠军。任何人跟他相比都望尘莫及。

【注释】在莎士比亚的时代，路灯还没有出现，从酒馆或 剧院回家的人们由手持蜡烛或火炬的linkboy (亦作 linkman,是旧时受雇为人在黑夜照明引路的执火把 者)陪同，这些linkboy的地位很低，所以Tom couldn’t hold a candle to Harry 意思是 Tom was very much inferior toHany,即汤姆不能跟Harry相比的意思。