📖 Meaning
A metaphor for taking the wrong approach to a problem, which not only fails to solve it but actually makes it worse. It evokes the image of trying to extinguish a blaze by adding more firewood to it. It is equivalent to the similar expression 救火投薪.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant of the closely related expression 救火投薪 and rests on the same vivid imagery: fighting a fire by tossing firewood onto it, a plainly counterproductive act. The underlying idea that misguided methods aggravate rather than resolve a crisis has deep roots in classical Chinese philosophy, where thinkers repeatedly warned against remedies that feed the very harm they aim to cure. No single classical text is definitively cited as the source of this exact four-character formulation.
💡 Example Usage
你这样处理纠纷简直是救燎助薪，只会让矛盾更大。
Handling the dispute this way is like throwing firewood on a fire — it will only deepen the conflict.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 救燎助薪
- Pinyin: jiù liáo zhù xīn
- Literal Translation: save, blaze, help, firewood
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4