Chinese idiom · 成语
兔死狐悲
Meaning
Rabbit dies, fox grieves; sympathy for shared fate.
Character by character
Origin and story
animal fableThe Dunhuang animal tale Yan Zi Fu tells of a swallow whose nest is seized by a sparrow. The dispute goes before the phoenix as judge. After the sparrow is punished, a related bird objects to the swallow's continued mockery: the wrongdoer deserves judgment, but someone close to him still feels distress. The bird invokes a saying with the animals in the reverse order, 'the fox dies and the rabbit grieves,' alongside the idea that creatures mourn their own kind. The later idiom is thus about recognizing one's own vulnerability in another's misfortune. It need not imply that the sufferer is literally a relative.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
看到隔壁书店关门，我们这些小店店主都有些兔死狐悲。
Seeing the bookstore next door close, we small-shop owners all felt a sympathetic sadness and fear for our own futures.
Sorrow for someone in a similar situation, often mixed with awareness of shared risk.