📖 Meaning
Originally referred to abandoning agriculture in favor of commerce and other secondary pursuits. Now used metaphorically to describe neglecting the fundamental aspect of a matter while focusing only on trivial or secondary details. It warns against misplaced priorities.
📜 Origin Story
This phrase originates from the 'Treatise on Food and Money' (食货志) in the Book of Han (汉书), compiled during the Eastern Han dynasty by Ban Gu. The text criticizes how people abandoned farming—the root of the economy—to pursue trade and money-lending, leaving fewer than half the people tilling the land and making lawlessness impossible to suppress. The author traces this social decay to the corrupting influence of money. Over time the phrase evolved from a specific critique of economic policy into a general metaphor for losing sight of what truly matters.
💡 Example Usage
做学问若只追求华丽辞藻而不重思想内容，无异于弃本逐末。
In scholarship, pursuing ornate rhetoric while neglecting substantive ideas is no different from abandoning the root to chase the branches.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 弃本逐末
- Pinyin: qì běn zhú mò
- Literal Translation: abandon the root, pursue the branches
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4