📖 Meaning
A metaphor for taking advantage of someone's misfortune to inflict further harm on them, rather than offering help. It is equivalent to the more common variant 落井下石 (dropping stones on someone who has fallen into a well). The idiom vividly depicts the cruelty of attacking a person when they are already helpless.
📜 Origin Story
During the Tang Dynasty, the renowned scholar Han Yu wrote an epitaph for his friend Liu Zongyuan (courtesy name Liu Zihou). In it, Han Yu lamented the fickleness of human relationships, observing that over petty disputes as trivial as a single hair, people would turn against one another as if they had never met. He wrote that when someone falls into a pit, rather than reaching out a hand to pull them to safety, people instead push them further in and throw stones down upon them — and such people are everywhere. The phrase became a lasting condemnation of those who exploit others' difficulties.
💡 Example Usage
他落难之时，昔日好友非但不帮，反而落阱下石，实在令人寒心。
When he fell on hard times, his former friends not only refused to help but instead kicked him while he was down — truly disheartening.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 落阱下石
- Pinyin: luò jǐng xià shí
- Literal Translation: fall, pit, down, stone
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4