📖 Meaning
刀耕火种 (dāo gēng huǒ zhòng) refers to a primitive slash-and-burn farming method in which people cut down grass and brush with knives, burned it to ash as fertilizer, then dug holes and planted seeds directly in the ground. It denotes crude, primitive agricultural techniques of ancient times and is sometimes used figuratively for rough or unsophisticated ways of doing things.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the Old Book of Tang (《旧唐书》), the official history compiled during the Five Dynasties period by the Later Jin chancellor Liu Xu and others around 945 AD. In the biography of Yan Zhen (严震), a Tang Dynasty official, the text records that in the region between Liangzhou and Hanzhong, 'the people farmed with knives and fire' (梁汉之间，刀耕火耨). The original phrasing used the character 耨 (to weed) rather than 种 (to sow), and the more familiar form 刀耕火种 emerged later as a variant. The expression describes the slash-and-burn cultivation widely practiced in mountainous areas of ancient China.
💡 Example Usage
随着农业机械化的普及，刀耕火种的那种原始的农业耕作技术已逐渐消失了。
With the spread of agricultural mechanization, the primitive slash-and-burn farming technique of knife-and-fire cultivation has gradually disappeared.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 刀耕火种
- Pinyin: dāo gēng huǒ zhòng
- Literal Translation: knife, cultivate, fire, sow
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4