小试牛刀 — Chinese idiom
小试牛刀
xiǎo shì niú dāo
Traditional: 小試牛刀
Meaning
- to give a small demonstration of one's impressive skills
Character by character
- 小xiǎosmall, tiny, insignificant
- 试shìto try, to experiment; exam, test
- 牛niúox, cow, bull
- 刀dāoknife; old coin; measure
Idioms sharing a character
- 不容小觑 bù róng xiǎo qù
- 不拘小节 bù jū xiǎo jié
- 幺麽小丑 yāo mó xiǎo chǒu
- 升斗小民 shēng dǒu xiǎo mín
- 因小失大 yīn xiǎo shī dà
- 大材小用 dà cái xiǎo yòng
- 大街小巷 dà jiē xiǎo xiàng
- 大惊小怪 dà jīng xiǎo guài
- 小人得志 xiǎo rén dé zhì
- 小巧玲珑 xiǎo qiǎo líng lóng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.