Chinese idiom · 成语
皮之不存
Meaning
If the skin is gone; without a foundation, nothing survives.
Character by character
Origin and story
Historical sayingThis is the opening half of the saying 皮之不存，毛将焉附: if the skin is gone, what can the hair cling to? The Zuozhuan (左傳), Duke Xi’s fourteenth year, records the older wording 毛將安傅 during a dispute over Jin’s refusal to supply grain to famine-stricken Qin. Qing Zheng condemns the refusal as ungrateful, inhumane, and dangerous. Guo She answers with the image of skin and hair.
The lasting force of the expression is dependence: something secondary cannot remain secure after the thing supporting it has disappeared. In ordinary use the complete saying makes the relationship clearer than the four-character opening alone.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
如果客户都走了，奖金也无从谈起，正所谓皮之不存，毛将焉附。
If all our clients leave, bonuses won't even be an option—as the saying goes, without the skin, what can the hair cling to?
Normally use the complete saying to explain that a benefit depends on its underlying support.