📖 Meaning
To climb a tree in search of fish. It describes using a fundamentally wrong approach or direction to achieve a goal, making success impossible. The idiom warns against methods that are inherently misaligned with one's objective.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from a poem by Su Zhe (苏辙) of the Northern Song Dynasty, titled 'A Reply to Scholar Wu Hou's Poem' (《次韵吴厚秀才见录》). Su Zhe wrote the line '登木求鱼知我拙，循巢觅兔笑君疏,' meaning 'Climbing a tree to find fish shows my clumsiness; searching nests for rabbits reveals your carelessness.' The phrase was used self-deprecatingly to acknowledge pursuing something in a misguided way. It is a less common variant of the more famous idiom '缘木求鱼' (climbing a tree to find fish), which appears in the classical text Mencius (《孟子》).
💡 Example Usage
不去实地调研而坐在办公室里想方案，无异于登木求鱼。
Sitting in the office devising plans without conducting field research is no different from climbing a tree to find fish.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 登木求鱼
- Pinyin: déng mù qiú yú
- Literal Translation: climb, tree, seek, fish
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4