Someone so badly frightened that any reminder undoes them
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.
The archer Geng Ying told the King of Wei he could bring down a passing goose with an empty bow, drew, and let the string sing. The bird dropped. It had been flying slowly and crying sadly, he explained — an old wound, still unhealed, and the sound of a bow was enough.
Source: 《战国策》Strategies of the Warring States, c. 1st 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.
惊弓之鸟 is pronounced jīng gōng zhī niǎo and means someone so badly frightened that any reminder undoes them. Literally it says "a bird startled by the bowstring" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《战国策》Strategies of the Warring States, c. 1st century BC. The archer Geng Ying told the King of Wei he could bring down a passing goose with an empty bow, drew, and let the string sing. The bird dropped. It had been flying slowly and crying sadly, he explained — an old wound, still unhealed, and the sound of a bow was enough.
jīng gōng zhī niǎo. 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.
惊 (jīng) Surprise (startle - alarm - scared), 弓 (gōng) Bow, 之 (zhī) It ([literary equivalent of 的] - him - her), 鸟 (niǎo) Bird. 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 advanced band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.
Rebuild 惊弓之鸟 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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