📖 Meaning
To look at the sky through a bamboo tube. It describes a person whose knowledge or perspective is extremely narrow and one-sided, unable to grasp the full picture.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom comes from the 'Autumn Floods' (秋水) chapter of the Zhuangzi, a foundational Daoist text from the Warring States period. The original passage asks: 'Using a tube to peer at the sky and an awl to measure the earth — is that not too small?' Zhuangzi used this metaphor to critique limited human perspectives when confronting the vastness of the Dao and the universe.
💡 Example Usage
仅凭部分数据就妄下结论，无异于以管窥天。
Drawing a conclusion based on only partial data is no different from peeping at the sky through a tube.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 以管窥天
- Pinyin: yǐ guǎn kuī tiān
- Literal Translation: with, tube, peep, sky
- Category: Knowledge
- Characters: 4