How does this make sense: Comer como una lima

Question

I see lima as two things, lime and file.

This is supposed to mean to eat like a horse according to our dictionary. Eat like a lime? Eat like a file? What am I missing here? Gracias

Answer 1

Lima (lime, from Arabic) and lima (file, from Latin) just look the same, but they are not related in any way, like ball (spherical object, from Germanic origin) and ball (dance, from French, akin to bailar), which look and sound the same, but have different etymologies and meanings. I guess that the expression exploits the metaphor of a file that "eats" everything it takes, since the expression is related to this object and not the lime, but it is only a guess.

Answer 2

RAE says: comer como una lima, o más que una lima.

1. locs. verbs. coloqs. Comer mucho.

Whether it means a lime or a nail file it doesn't make much sense in English but it's an idiom and many idioms don't translate .

This thread on wordreference suggests that the translation of lima here would be nail file .

Edit: I was talking to Heidi earlier, and she says that lima does mean nail file here, because the nail file eats away at the nail which makes sense if you think about it .