郑人争年 / 鄭人爭年

zhèng​rén​zhēng​nián

futile quarrel

An idiom derived from a story in the book [[韩非子|韓非子|han2 fei1 zi3]] about two men from the state of Zheng arguing over who was older; refers to a meaningless dispute or a quarrel without any basis in fact.

郑 (literal) → 郑/鄭 · zhèng · Zheng 人 (literal) → 人 · rén · person 争 (literal) → 争/爭 · zhēng · to argue 年 (literal) → 年 · nián · age

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

created sense May 20, 2026, 07:57 PM