📖 Meaning
Describes someone or something so lowly and insignificant that it is not worth mentioning. Often used in self-deprecating speech to belittle one's own status, abilities, or contributions.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom crystallized from the older form '卑卑不足道' found in late-Qing and early-Republican vernacular prose, and has no single classical anecdote attached to it. It is a compounding of 卑 (lowly, humble) with the formula 不足道 (not worth speaking of), a pattern already common in Ming–Qing literary Chinese. The phrase became widely familiar through modern literary usage, most notably in Ba Jin's 1931 novel 'Family' (《家》), where a character humbly calls himself 卑不足道. Today it serves both as modest self-reference and as a dismissive judgment of others.
💡 Example Usage
在您面前，我这点成就实在卑不足道。
Before you, my small achievements are truly not worth mentioning.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 卑不足道
- Pinyin: bēi bù zú dào
- Literal Translation: lowly, not, worth, to mention
- Category: Status
- Characters: 4