📖 Meaning
A fox buries something, then immediately digs it up again to check on it. The idiom describes a person whose excessive suspicion and second-guessing sabotages their own efforts, so that suspicion leads to failure.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from 《国语·吴语》 (Discourses of the States, Wu chapter), compiled in the Warring States period and recording speeches from the Spring and Autumn era. It uses the image of a fox burying its cache and then uneasily digging it back up as a proverb for self-defeating suspicion. The line runs '狐埋之，而狐搰之，是以无成功' — a fox buries it and a fox digs it up, hence nothing is ever accomplished.
💡 Example Usage
他做事狐埋狐搰，反复无常，最终一事无成。
He second-guesses everything he does, constantly reversing himself, and in the end accomplishes nothing.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 狐埋狐搰
- Pinyin: hú mái hú hú
- Literal Translation: fox, buries, fox, digs up
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4