照猫画虎 — Chinese idiom
照猫画虎
zhào māo huà hǔ
Traditional: 照貓畫虎
Meaning
- lit. drawing a tiger using a cat as a model ; fig. to follow a model and get things more or less right but without capturing the spirit of the subject
- uninspired imitation
Character by character
- 照zhàoto shine, to reflect, to illuminate
- 猫māocat
- 画huàpicture, painting, drawing; to draw
- 虎hǔtiger; brave, fierce; surname
Idioms sharing a character
- 福星高照 fú xīng gāo zhào
- 肝胆相照 gān dǎn xiāng zhào
- 阳光普照 yáng guāng pǔ zhào
- 猫哭老鼠 māo kū lǎo shǔ
- 猫哭耗子 māo kū hào zi
- 阿猫阿狗 ā māo ā gǒu
- 指手画脚 zhǐ shǒu huà jiǎo
- 琴棋书画 qín qí shū huà
- 画地为牢 huà dì wéi láo
- 画地自限 huà dì zì xiàn
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.