Chinese idiom · 成语
天罗地网
Meaning
Heaven’s web, earth’s net; an inescapable trap.
Character by character
Origin and story
literary narrativeA net for birds is called luo; joining nets in the sky with nets on the ground creates an image of escape being blocked in every direction. In the popular historical narrative Da Song Xuanhe Yishi, Jia Yi is caught at Li Shishi's residence when Gao Qiu arrives. Gao has him bound and sent to prison, and a verse describes his renewed trouble as a disaster of heavenly and earthly nets. This is an episode in a literary narrative, not evidence of a Han-period cosmic trap. The idiom subsequently describes an inescapable encirclement or a tightly organized system of capture.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
警方在各个出口布下天罗地网，最终抓获了逃跑的嫌疑人。
Police covered every exit and ultimately caught the fleeing suspect.
Commonly follows 布下 or 设下 and describes a thorough encirclement.