📖 Meaning
Using a large cauldron meant for boiling a whole ox to cook a single chicken. It is a metaphor for assigning a person of great talent to a trivial task, thereby wasting their abilities on an unsuitable, minor position.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom comes from the 'Biography of Bian Rang' in the Book of the Later Han (后汉书), written during the Liu Song dynasty. Bian Rang was a brilliant scholar of the Eastern Han period. The prominent scholar-official Cai Yong wrote a letter to the powerful General He Jin recommending Bian Rong, employing the analogy that cooking a chicken in a pot large enough to hold an ox would turn out either too watery or too scorched. He argued that placing great talent in an unsuitable minor post would similarly fail to yield good results, stressing the importance of matching ability to responsibility.
💡 Example Usage
以你的才干做这份琐碎的工作，实在是牛鼎烹鸡。
With your abilities, doing this trivial work is truly a waste of great talent on a small task.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 牛鼎烹鸡
- Pinyin: niú dǐng pēng jī
- Literal Translation: ox, cauldron, cook, chicken
- Category: Wisdom
- Characters: 4