杯水车薪
- Literal
- a cup of water, a cartload of firewood
- Figurative
- Help so small against the size of the problem that it cannot solve it: the point is not how little it is, but how far it falls short.
Where does 杯水车薪 come from?
It comes from the 《孟子》, in the chapter “告子上”. Mencius argues that benevolence overcomes inhumanity as water overcomes fire, but that those who practice it in his day are like someone trying to put out a burning cartload of firewood with a cup of water: when the flames do not go out, they conclude that water cannot beat fire. It was a rebuke to people who make a token effort and then blame the method. The simile became the idiom, which today describes any help that falls far short of what is needed: subsidies, donations, policies or stopgaps.
Source (出处): 《孟子·告子上》
How is 杯水车薪 used? Two examples
- 每月那点补贴，拿来交北京的房租简直是杯水车薪。
That little monthly allowance barely makes a dent in rent in Beijing.
- 灾区缺口太大，几十万元的捐款只是杯水车薪。
The shortfall in the disaster zone is so vast that a few hundred thousand yuan in donations hardly scratches the surface.
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