食古不化 — Chinese idiom
食古不化
shí gǔ bù huà
Meaning
- to swallow ancient learning without digesting it
- to be pedantic without having a mastery of one's subject
Character by character
- 食shífood; to eat
- 古gǔold, classic, ancient
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 化huàto change, to convert, to reform; -ize
Idioms sharing a character
- 三旬九食 sān xún jiǔ shí
- 因噎废食 yīn yē fèi shí
- 宵衣旰食 xiāo yī gàn shí
- 寝食难安 qǐn shí nán ān
- 废寝忘食 fèi qǐn wàng shí
- 弱肉强食 ruò ròu qiáng shí
- 灭此朝食 miè cǐ zhāo shí
- 狂饮暴食 kuáng yǐn bào shí
- 率兽食人 shuài shòu shí rén
- 发愤忘食 fā fèn wàng shí
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.