📖 Meaning
A fox that relies on a tiger's prestige. It is a metaphor for someone who has no real power of their own but borrows the authority of a powerful patron to bully, intimidate, or impress others. It is a variant of the more common idiom 狐假虎威.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase appears in the preface to the Biographies of Favorites (恩幸传序) in the Book of Song (宋书), a history of the Liu Song dynasty of the Southern Dynasties compiled by Shen Yue (沈约). The preface condemns court favorites who, lacking genuine merit, cling to imperial favor, comparing them to a rat honored because it hides in the shrine of the earth god, or a fox that borrows the tiger's terror. The underlying fable is far older, tracing to Intrigues of the Warring States (战国策·楚策一), in which a tiger seizes a fox and the fox declares that Heaven has made him king of the beasts, daring the tiger to walk behind him; all the animals flee, and the tiger believes they fear the fox when in fact they fear the tiger itself.
💡 Example Usage
他不过是狐藉虎威，靠着董事长的权势在同事面前摆架子。
He is nothing but a fox borrowing a tiger's prestige, throwing his weight around in front of his colleagues on the strength of the chairman's authority.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 狐藉虎威
- Pinyin: hú jiè hǔ wēi
- Literal Translation: fox, rely on, tiger, prestige
- Category: Power
- Characters: 4