杞人忧天 — Chinese idiom
杞人忧天
Qǐ rén yōu tiān
Traditional: 杞人憂天
Meaning
- (lit.) like the man of 杞 (Qǐ) who feared the sky would fall
- (fig.) to entertain groundless fears
Character by character
- 杞Qǐwillow, medlar tree; a small feudal state
- 人rénman, person; people
- 忧yōusad, grieving; melancholy, grief
- 天tiānsky, heaven; god, celestial
Idioms sharing a character
- 杞人之忧 Qǐ rén zhī yōu
- 杞梓之林 qǐ zǐ zhī lín
- 一鸣惊人 yī míng jīng rén
- 三人成虎 sān rén chéng hǔ
- 不可告人 bù kě gào rén
- 不恤人言 bù xù rén yán
- 不甘人后 bù gān rén hòu
- 不甘后人 bù gān hòu rén
- 不近人情 bù jìn rén qíng
- 乘人不备 chéng rén bù bèi
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.