







宁为鸡尸,不为牛从 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “Better to be the head of a small group or enterprise than a subordinate in a large and powerful one; preferring to be in charge of a small entity rather than a follower in a larger one”. Literally, “Rather be the master of a chicken than a follower of an ox”.

Choose character parts and animate their colors, together or in stroke order
Open the tool →
Chinese and English fill-in vocabulary worksheets
Open the tool →
Turn a Chinese character or sentence into a GIF or MP4
Open the tool →
Printable tracing sheets with a QR learning companion
Open the tool →宁为鸡尸,不为牛从 (níng wèi jī shī , bù wèi niú cóng) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “Better to be the head of a small group or enterprise than a subordinate in a large and powerful one; preferring to be in charge of a small entity rather than a follower in a larger one”.
宁为鸡尸,不为牛从 is pronounced níng wèi jī shī , bù wèi niú cóng in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 宁为鸡尸,不为牛从 means “Rather be the master of a chicken than a follower of an ox”. It is used to mean “Better to be the head of a small group or enterprise than a subordinate in a large and powerful one; preferring to be in charge of a small entity rather than a follower in a larger one”.
尸:主持,主管。比喻宁可做小国的主人,也不做大国的仆从。指宁可在小地方当家作主,不去大地方受人指使