惊弓之鸟 — Chinese idiom
惊弓之鸟
jīng gōng zhī niǎo
Traditional: 驚弓之鳥
Meaning
- (lit.) a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow
- (fig.) sb who frightens easily, due to past experiences
Character by character
- 惊jīngto frighten, to startle; surprise, alarm
- 弓gōngbow; curved, arched
- 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
- 鸟niǎobird
Idioms sharing a character
- 一夕数惊 yī xī shù jīng
- 一鸣惊人 yī míng jīng rén
- 大吃一惊 dà chī yī jīng
- 大惊失色 dà jīng shī sè
- 大惊小怪 dà jīng xiǎo guài
- 心惊肉跳 xīn jīng ròu tiào
- 心惊胆战 xīn jīng dǎn zhàn
- 怵目惊心 chù mù jīng xīn
- 打草惊蛇 dǎ cǎo jīng shé
- 拍案惊奇 pāi àn jīng qí
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.