白面书生 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. pale-faced scholar ; young and inexperienced person without practical experience
• still wet behind the ears

Character by character

• 白báiwhite; clear, pure, unblemished; bright
• 面miànface; surface, side; plane, dimension
• 书shūbook, letter, document; writing
• 生shēnglife, lifetime; birth; growth

Idioms sharing a character

• 一清二白 yī qīng èr bái
• 不分皂白 bù fēn zào bái
• 不明不白 bù míng bù bái
• 两鬓斑白 liǎng bìn bān bái
• 平白无故 píng bái wú gù
• 恶叉白赖 è chā bái lài
• 数黑论白 shǔ hēi lùn bái
• 白手起家 bái shǒu qǐ jiā
• 白旄黄钺 bái máo huáng yuè
• 白眉赤眼 bái méi chì yǎn

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.