📖 Meaning
A soft-shelled turtle trapped in an urn. It is a metaphor for someone or something already within one's grasp with no possibility of escape. It describes a situation where a person or enemy is completely cornered and capture is inevitable.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase appears in Feng Menglong's 'Yushi Mingyan' (Stories to Enlighten the World) from the Ming dynasty, where the character Yang Balao and a group of commoners are captured by Japanese pirates. Feng compares them to a turtle in a jar and fish in a cooking pot—nowhere to hide or flee, with no choice but to submit in order to survive. The imagery of a turtle trapped in a deep urn, unable to climb out, became a vivid metaphor for inescapable capture. The idiom is also used in Qing dynasty works such as Qian Cai's 'Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan' (The Complete Tale of Yue Fei).
💡 Example Usage
警察早已布下天罗地网，这伙歹徒不过是瓮中之鳖，插翅难飞。
The police had already laid an inescapable net; these criminals were nothing but a turtle in a jar, unable to flee even with wings.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 瓮中之鳖
- Pinyin: wèng zhōng zhī biē
- Literal Translation: urn, inside, of, soft-shelled turtle
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4