created sense approved 闻雷失箸/聞雷失箸 · wénléishīzhù · to hide the truth with clever words — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"
闻雷失箸 / 聞雷失箸
wénléishīzhù
to hide the truth with clever words
To drop one's chopsticks upon hearing thunder; describes masking one's true feelings or shock with a clever excuse. This refers to a story from the [[三国志|三國志|san1 guo2 zhi4]] where Liu Bei dropped his chopsticks after Cao Cao called him a hero, and then blamed the noise of thunder for his reaction.
闻 (literal) → 闻/聞 · wén · to hear 雷 (literal) → 雷 · léi · thunder 失 (literal) → 失 · shī · to lose 箸 (literal) → 箸 · zhù · chopsticks
Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition