叶公好龙 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. Lord Ye's passion for dragons
• fig. to pretend to be fond of sth while actually fearing it
• ostensible fondness of sth one really fears

Character by character

• 叶Yèleaf, page; surname
• 公Gōngfair, equitable; public; duke
• 好hàogood, excellent, fine; proper, suitable; well
• 龙lóngdragon; symbol of the emperor

Idioms sharing a character

• 一叶知秋 yī yè zhī qiū
• 一叶障目 yī yè zhàng mù
• 有枝有叶 yǒu zhī yǒu yè
• 根深叶茂 gēn shēn yè mào
• 梵册贝叶 fàn cè bèi yè
• 粗枝大叶 cū zhī dà yè
• 落叶归根 luò yè guī gēn
• 叶落归根 yè luò guī gēn
• 金枝玉叶 jīn zhī yù yè
• 假公济私 jiǎ gōng jì sī

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.