📖 Meaning
Cooking sand cannot produce rice, and carving ice cannot make a vessel. This idiom metaphorically describes efforts that are completely futile and will never yield any result, no matter how hard one tries.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the Song Dynasty scholar Zhang Min's (张渂) work 'Yungu Zaji' (云谷杂记), a collection of miscellaneous notes on scholarship and literature. In the preface, Zhang lamented that trying to reconstruct knowledge from ruined and broken texts was like cooking sand and carving ice — it brought no real accomplishment. The phrase criticizes pursuits that waste energy on inherently impossible tasks, urging readers to recognize when effort is misdirected.
💡 Example Usage
不掌握正确方法就盲目努力，无异于炊沙镂冰，终究白费力气。
Working blindly without the right method is no different from cooking sand and carving ice — a complete waste of effort.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 炊沙镂冰
- Pinyin: chuī shā lòu bīng
- Literal Translation: cook sand, carve ice
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4