📖 Meaning
Literally "a thing inside a medicine chest." It refers to medicinal materials kept ready in a chest for future use, and is used metaphorically to describe reserve talent — capable people kept on hand and regarded as indispensable.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the "New Book of Tang, Biography of Yuan Xingchong." Yuan Xingchong was a learned scholar-official of the Tang Dynasty. According to the text, he once told someone, "You are exactly my medicine-chest thing — I cannot be without you for a single day." The metaphor compares a valuable person to medicine kept in a chest: always at hand and impossible to do without, underscoring how essential reserve talent is.
💡 Example Usage
这位年轻人是公司的药笼中物，迟早会被委以重任。
This young person is the company's reserve talent and will sooner or later be entrusted with major responsibilities.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 药笼中物
- Pinyin: yào lóng zhōng wù
- Literal Translation: medicine, cage, inside, thing
- Category: Leadership
- Characters: 4