金蝉脱壳 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. the cicada sheds its carapace ; fig. to vanish leaving an empty shell
• a crafty escape plan

Character by character

• 金jīngold, metal; money
• 蝉cháncicada; continuous
• 脱tuōto take off, to shed; to escape from
• 壳qiàocasing, husk, shell

Idioms sharing a character

• 一刻千金 yī kè qiān jīn
• 一字千金 yī zì qiān jīn
• 一掷千金 yī zhì qiān jīn
• 一言千金 yī yán qiān jīn
• 一诺千金 yī nuò qiān jīn
• 千金一掷 qiān jīn yī zhì
• 千金一诺 qiān jīn yī nuò
• 千金难买 qiān jīn nán mǎi
• 固若金汤 gù ruò jīn tāng
• 如金似玉 rú jīn sì yù

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