ask a tiger for its skin

ask a tiger for its skin

It is a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is y ǔ h ú m ó up í, which means that what you plan is harmful to the other party's vital interests and it is difficult to achieve the goal. It comes from Fu Zi quoted in volume 208 of Taiping Yulan.

The origin of Idioms

The book of Taiping Yulan quoted Fu Zi as saying: "Zhou people love fur and like delicacies. They want to be fur of thousands of gold and seek the fur of foxes. They want to have the treasure of little prison and seek the delicacies of sheep. Before he died, the fox fled under the heavy hill, and the sheep hid in the deep forest. Therefore, the people of Zhou Dynasty did not make a fur for ten years, and did not have a prison for five years. "

Analysis of Idioms

Seeking skin with a tiger

Idiom usage

As predicate, object, attribute; of fantasy. In this case, the proposal to dispatch the sailors of the boat is to seek for the fur of thousands of gold. It is not only useless but also harmful. Wei Yuan's book on the sea and water channels by Lu Gong, governor of Jiangsu Province in the Qing Dynasty

Idiom story

It is said that some people in the Zhou Dynasty especially liked to wear leather clothes and eat exquisite food. He "wanted to fight with the fox for the fur of thousands of gold", so the fox sent an alarm and fled to the mountains. "If he wanted to have the treasure of little prison, he would fight with the sheep for shame." the sheep called his companions and hid in the dense forest. As a result, he didn't make a leather robe or hold a sacrificial banquet of mutton.