📖 Meaning
Like a dragon half-hidden in mist and clouds, showing only a patch of scales here and a claw there. It describes someone who hides one thing while revealing another, afraid to show themselves fully, acting timidly and indecisively. Equivalent to the Chinese expressions 藏头露尾 (hiding the head but exposing the tail) and 畏首畏尾 (fearing both the beginning and the end).
📜 Origin Story
This idiom has no single recorded textual source, but its imagery is rooted in the classical Chinese picture of a dragon coiling through fog and clouds, its body concealed so that only scattered scales and claws catch the eye. In traditional dragon lore the creature's true form is never fully seen, so glimpses of scale and claw stand for something deliberately or fearfully left incomplete. Later writers used the phrase to mock those who speak or act evasively, showing a fragment of intent while withholding the rest. It survives mainly in literary and expressive usage rather than in a canonical classical anecdote.
💡 Example Usage
他在会上发言总是雾鳞云爪，从不敢明确表态。
Whenever he speaks at meetings he only gives foggy hints, never daring to state his position clearly.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 雾鳞云爪
- Pinyin: wù lín yún zhǎo
- Literal Translation: fog, scales, cloud, claws
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4