Literal translation
Hair by hair, the wig gets made
Meaning
little by little, great things get done
Explanation
This saying illustrates the principle of patience and steady effort in carrying out a large task, through the concrete image of a wigmaker assembling a wig hair by hair, never laying all the hairs down at once. The particle cha, specific to this fixed phrase à cha péu (little by little, one by one), has no independent use outside this expression and a few related ones, but here it marks progress made in isolated units. The finished result, a whole wig, appears all the more impressive for having come from a painstaking accumulation of tiny, repeated gestures. It is used to encourage perseverance in the face of a long task that discourages by its sheer scale, recalling that nothing great gets done except through a sum of small efforts kept up without let-up. The register is sententious and common, in the tradition of proverbs that value patient, steady work.