make a silk purse of a sow's ear
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To create something valuable from something of poor quality
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Tạo ra một điều gì đó có giá trị từ một điều gì đó chất lượng kém
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: making a luxurious purse from a pig's ear
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She tried to make a silk purse of a sow's ear with her DIY project
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “make a silk purse of a sow's ear” mean?
To create something valuable from something of poor quality Literally: making a luxurious purse from a pig's ear
Is “make a silk purse of a sow's ear” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.