造茧自缚 — Chinese idiom
造茧自缚
zào jiǎn zì fù
Traditional: 造繭自縛
Meaning
- to spin a cocoon around oneself ; enmeshed in a trap of one's own devising
- hoist with his own petard
Character by character
- 造zàoto build, to construct, to invent, to manufacture
- 茧jiǎncocoon; callus, blister
- 自zìself; private, personal; from
- 缚fùto tie, to bind
Idioms sharing a character
- 向壁虚造 xiàng bì xū zào
- 天造地设 tiān zào dì shè
- 恩同再造 ēn tóng zài zào
- 凭空捏造 píng kōng niē zào
- 粗制滥造 cū zhì làn zào
- 胡编乱造 hú biān luàn zào
- 闭门造车 bì mén zào chē
- 作茧自缚 zuò jiǎn zì fù
- 抽丝剥茧 chōu sī bō jiǎn
- 破茧成蝶 pò jiǎn chéng dié
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.