To fool nobody but yourself
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.
A thief found a bell too heavy to carry, so he took a hammer to it — and the clang carried across the whole district. Terrified of the noise, he clapped his hands over his own ears and kept smashing, as though not hearing it meant nobody else could.
Source: 《吕氏春秋》Lüshi Chunqiu, 239 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.
掩耳盗铃 is pronounced yǎn ěr dào líng and means to fool nobody but yourself. Literally it says "cover your ears while stealing a bell" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《吕氏春秋》Lüshi Chunqiu, 239 BC. A thief found a bell too heavy to carry, so he took a hammer to it — and the clang carried across the whole district. Terrified of the noise, he clapped his hands over his own ears and kept smashing, as though not hearing it meant nobody else could.
yǎn ěr dào líng. 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.
掩 (yǎn) Cover up (to surprise), 耳 (ěr) Ear, 盗 (dào) Rob (steal - theif), 铃 (líng) Bell (ringing). 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 掩耳盗铃 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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