📖 Meaning
To swallow a date whole, without chewing. It is used metaphorically for accepting ideas, knowledge, or things wholesale without analysis or discrimination, so that nothing is truly digested or understood. The idiom criticizes a superficial, uncritical way of learning or receiving information.
📜 Origin Story
This exact form has no recorded origin (出处: 无) and is a variant spelling of the more common idiom 囫囵吞枣 (húlún tūn zǎo). The traditional story, often attributed to the Yuan-dynasty miscellaneous collection 湛渊静语 by 白珽, tells of a man who was told that pears are good for the teeth but harm the spleen, while dates are good for the spleen but harm the teeth. He proudly declared that he would only chew the pears without swallowing, and swallow the dates whole without chewing — a reply that was mocked as foolish, since swallowing a date whole lets one taste nothing and digest nothing. The tale thus illustrates accepting things unexamined, and the variant 浑沦吞枣 retains exactly this meaning.
💡 Example Usage
读书时切莫浑沦吞枣，要逐字逐句弄清意思。
When reading, never swallow the material whole — be sure to work out the meaning sentence by sentence.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 浑沦吞枣
- Pinyin: hún lún tūn zǎo
- Literal Translation: whole, swallow, date
- Category: Learning
- Characters: 4