以莛撞钟
yǐ​tíng​zhuàng​zhōng

to strike a bell with a stalk

  • created sense approved 以莛撞钟/以莛撞鐘 · yǐ​tíng​zhuàng​zhōng · to strike a bell with a stalk — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    以莛撞钟 / 以莛撞鐘

    yǐ​tíng​zhuàng​zhōng

    to strike a bell with a stalk

    (idiom) Lit. to strike a bell with a grass stalk. It describes a futile effort where one overestimates their own ability or a situation where a student's knowledge is too shallow to elicit a response from a master. Often paired with [[以蠡测海|以蠡測海|yi3 li2 ce4 hai3]] and [[以管窥天|以管窺天|yi3 guan3 kui1 tian1]].

    以 (literal) → 以 · yǐ · by means of 莛 (literal) → 莛 · tíng · stalk 撞 (literal) → 撞 · zhuàng · to strike 钟 (literal) → 钟/鐘 · zhōng · bell

    Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

    created sense