Someone with a narrow view of the world
The gap between those first two lines is the whole point of a chengyu. It is quoted whole, never assembled, and the literal reading is a picture from the story below rather than a definition — which is why translating the four characters one at a time rarely gets you there.
How our dictionary glosses it
Shortsighted person — full dictionary entry.
A frog boasted to a turtle from the Eastern Sea about his well: he had the whole puddle to himself and a perfect circle of sky above. The turtle tried to describe the sea — too wide to measure, too deep to fathom, unchanged by ten years of flood or seven of drought — and the frog was struck dumb.
Source: 《庄子》Zhuangzi, 4th century BC
The reading shown is the one each character takes inside this idiom — chengyu keep older readings, so it is not always the everyday one. The meanings are read from the same dictionary that powers the translators.
Want the stroke order for one of these? Each character links to its dictionary entry, which animates it.
井底之蛙 is pronounced jǐng dǐ zhī wā and means someone with a narrow view of the world. Literally it says "a frog at the bottom of a well" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《庄子》Zhuangzi, 4th century BC. A frog boasted to a turtle from the Eastern Sea about his well: he had the whole puddle to himself and a perfect circle of sky above. The turtle tried to describe the sea — too wide to measure, too deep to fathom, unchanged by ten years of flood or seven of drought — and the frog was struck dumb.
jǐng dǐ zhī wā. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice. Tones here are citation tones, so 一 is written yī even where it is said yí in running speech.
井 (jǐng) Well (order), 底 (dǐ) Bottom (background - end - records), 之 (zhī) It ([literary equivalent of 的] - him - her), 蛙 (wā) Frog. These meanings come from the same dictionary as the translators on this site, and the reading shown is the one the character takes inside this idiom.
Yes. Chengyu are not archaic — they are ordinary educated speech, and they turn up in conversation, newspapers and exams. This one sits in the beginner band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.
Rebuild 井底之蛙 from scrambled tiles in the Chengyu Story Puzzle, test yourself on idiom meanings in the Chengyu Quiz, browse all the idioms, or save this one above and review it on your review deck.
Every idiom here comes with the story it was compressed from — that is the rule for being listed, and it is why they stick.
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