郑人买履 / 鄭人買履

zhèng​rén​mǎi​lǚ

dogmatism; impracticality

(idiom) Lit. a person from [[郑|鄭|zheng4]] buying shoes; to follow a dogmatic rule regardless of the actual situation, or to be such a person. It refers to a story of a man who measured his feet but forgot the paper at home, and rather than trying on the shoes himself, he went home to get the measurement, missing the chance to buy them

郑 (literal) → 郑/鄭 · zhèng · Zheng 人 (literal) → 人 · rén · person 买 (literal) → 买/買 · mǎi · to buy 履 (literal) → 履 · lǚ · shoe

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

created sense May 20, 2026, 07:57 PM