子虚乌有 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to have no basis in fact; to be the product of sb's imagination

Character by character

• 子zǐson, child; seed, egg; fruit; small thing
• 虚xūfalse; worthless, hollow, empty; vain
• 乌wūcrow, rook, raven; black, dark
• 有yǒuto have, to own, to possess; to exist

Idioms sharing a character

• 乱臣贼子 luàn chén zéi zǐ
• 仁人君子 rén rén jūn zǐ
• 佳人才子 jiā rén cái zǐ
• 多子多福 duō zǐ duō fú
• 妻离子散 qī lí zǐ sàn
• 子丑寅卯 zǐ chǒu yín mǎo
• 子子孙孙 zǐ zǐ sūn sūn
• 子承父业 zǐ chéng fù yè
• 孺子可教 rú zǐ kě jiào
• 封妻荫子 fēng qī yìn zǐ

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