一毛不拔 – Yi Mao Bu Ba – Stingy Scrooge

Chengyu

一毛不拔 – yī máo bù bá

Chinese Character Break Down

一 – one
毛 – hair, down
不 – not
拔 – pull out

一毛不拔: To not even be willing to pull out a hair.

Idiom Meaning

This Chengyu describes being stingy or niggard; not spending money for others.

Chengyu Examples

他很吝啬，像铁公鸡，一毛不拔！
tā hěn lìnsè, xiàng tiěgōngjì, yīmáobùbá!
He is so stingy, like an iron rooster*, won’t even pull out a hair for ya.
* Read more about the iron rooster below!

对好朋友要相当大方，而不是一毛不拔。
duì hǎo péngyou yào xiāngdāng dàfāng, érbúshì yīmáobùbá.
You have to be generous and not a scrooge towards your friends!

Chengyu Story and Background

Not the most exciting story this time, but further below you find an interesting pragmatic note.

“In the Warring States period, there were all sorts of philosophies out there. The thinker Mozi advocated for the love of mankind towards each other and for helping. Another thinker called Yang Zhu said, all actions came from self-interest.

One day, Mozi’s student Qin Hua Li came up to Yang Zhu and asked: “If you could help the whole world (天下) by only pulling out one of your hairs, would you be willing to do it?”

Yang Zhu answered: “There is no such problem that could be solved by pulling out a hair.”

“But if it could?”, insisted Qin.

However, Yang Zhu still didn’t show himself ready to do so.”

What’s interesting: In Chinese language, 一毛不拔 often comes together with the iron rooster metaphor (铁公鸡). That’s because if a rooster’s made of iron, there is no way to pull out one of his downs.

Check out phrase 1 above for an example.

In the story above, the word 汗毛 (usually: down) is also being used for what I translated as “hair”.

So, we know why it’s the iron rooster but not where it comes from. If you know more about the origin of 铁公鸡, post it in the comments, I’d love to know where that comes from and update this post.