佐々木：結婚式に着るドレスを選んでいるんですが。
店員：これなんかいかがでしょう。このドレスでしたら、どんな豪華な席でも絶対にひけをとりませんよ。
Hike wo toru/Hike wo toranai
(Butikku de)
Sasaki: Kekkon shiki ni kiru doresu wo erande iru'n desu ga...
Tenin:Kore nanka ikaga deshoo. Kono doresu deshitara donna gooka na seki demo zettai ni hike wo torimasen yo.
(At a boutique)
Sasaki: I'm looking for a dress to wear at a wedding....
Salesclerk: What about this? With this dress on, you'll be second to none no matter how splendid the occasion may be.
Hike wo torn, like hike-me wo kanjiru, expresses the feeling of being inferior to someone, the feeling of being defeated. It is said that hike owes its origin to a direction hike, meaning withdraw, at a battle-field when the tide turned against one. Hike wo toranai, the opposite of hike wo toru, means to hold one's own with the best, to be second to none, to prove oneself equal to.
The black dress the clerk showed me cost twice what I'd been planning to spend. But after she said, "Donna doresu ni mo hike wo toranai to hoshoo shimasu" (I guarantee it will stand up in comparison with any other dress), I couldn't help buying it.
At the wedding party, I found many female attendants wearing delightful blues and pinks. Feeling uneasy that my black dress was perhaps a bit too plain, I asked my husband how I looked. "It's lovely. It really looks good on you," says he. Though he may have been just trying to make me feel good, his comment reassured me that the clerk had been right.
You might note that the negative use of hike wo toranai turns up in conversation more often than its counterpart. For example, the president of a small business tells a group of new employees, 'Though our company is not very big, kyuuryoo de wa daigaisha ni hike wo toranai. (when it comes to salaries, we can hold our own against any big company)." He meant that the small company is not necessarily superior to big companies, but the salaries are comparable. You could say that kibo de wa hike wo toru ga, kyuryo de wa hike wo toranai. (Though the small company is outdone when it comes to size, it can hold its own with the biggest of them when it comes to what it pays its workers.)