a disciple who has not taken lessons directly under the master himself

a disciple who has not taken lessons directly under the master himself

It's a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is s ī sh ū D ì Z ǐ, which means to call oneself an elder who you admire but can't learn from. It's from Mencius, under the leaves.

Idiom explanation

Private: private; Shu: good. The self claim to the elders whom they admire but cannot learn from.

The origin of Idioms

Mencius · lilouxia: "to be a disciple of Confucius, to be a private scholar."

Idiom usage

As an object or attributive; used in modesty

Examples

As for the world's important people, they are not. Some of them are secretaries, or ~, doing annotation work for them. Lu Xun's pseudo freedom book