贫无立锥 — Chinese idiom
贫无立锥
pín wú lì zhuī
Traditional: 貧無立錐
Meaning
- not even enough land to stand an awl ; absolutely destitute
Character by character
- 贫pínpoor, needy, impoverished; lacking
- 无wúno, not; lacking, -less
- 立lìto stand; to establish, to set up
- 锥zhuīgimlet, drill, awl; to drill, to bore
Idioms sharing a character
- 一贫如洗 yī pín rú xǐ
- 劫富济贫 jié fù jì pín
- 嫌贫爱富 xián pín ài fù
- 安富恤贫 ān fù xù pín
- 安贫乐道 ān pín lè dào
- 家贫如洗 jiā pín rú xǐ
- 打富济贫 dǎ fù jì pín
- 脱贫致富 tuō pín zhì fù
- 访贫问苦 fǎng pín wèn kǔ
- 贫病交加 pín bìng jiāo jiā
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.