叶公好龙 — Chinese idiom
叶公好龙
Yè Gōng hào lóng
Traditional: 葉公好龍
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.