📖 Meaning
Literally to cover one's own ears while stealing a bell. It is a metaphor for self-deception—fooling oneself into believing that if one cannot perceive a problem, no one else can either. The idiom describes people who ignore obvious facts or the consequences of their own actions.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from the chapter 'Self-Awareness' (自知) in the Lüshi Chunqiu, an encyclopedic text compiled in the late Warring States period (3rd century BCE) under the patronage of Lü Buwei of the state of Qin. When the Fan clan was destroyed, a commoner got hold of a large bronze bell and wanted to carry it away, but it was too heavy to lift. He tried to smash it with a hammer, whereupon the bell rang out with a loud resounding tone. Afraid that others would hear the sound and take the bell from him, he hastily covered his own ears—believing that if he could not hear it, no one else could either. The story survives in the popular variant 掩耳盗铃 ('stealing a bell while covering one's ears').
💡 Example Usage
明知数据造假却隐瞒不报，简直是掩耳盗钟。
Knowing the data was fabricated yet hiding it instead of reporting it is simply fooling oneself.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 掩耳盗钟
- Pinyin: yǎn ěr dào zhōng
- Literal Translation: cover, ear, steal, bell
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4