See 鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "ja",
"2": "lzh",
"3": "割雞焉用牛刀",
"lit": "why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?",
"nocap": "1"
},
"expansion": "calque of Literary Chinese 割雞焉用牛刀 (gējī yān yòng niúdāo, literally “why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?”)",
"name": "calque"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From the Analects of Confucius, a calque of Literary Chinese 割雞焉用牛刀 (gējī yān yòng niúdāo, literally “why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?”).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん",
"ruby": [
[
"鶏",
"にわとり"
],
[
"割",
"さ"
],
[
"牛",
"ぎゅう"
],
[
"刀",
"とう"
],
[
"用",
"もち"
]
],
"tags": [
"canonical"
]
},
{
"form": "niwatori o saku ni nanzo gyūtō o mochiin",
"tags": [
"romanization"
]
},
{
"form": "鷄を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん",
"tags": [
"alternative",
"kanji",
"kyūjitai"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "proverb",
"2": "にわとり を さく に なんぞ ぎゅうとう を もち.いん",
"head": "鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん"
},
"expansion": "鶏(にわとり)を割(さ)くになんぞ牛(ぎゅう)刀(とう)を用(もち)いん • (niwatori o saku ni nanzo gyūtō o mochiin)",
"name": "ja-pos"
}
],
"lang": "Japanese",
"lang_code": "ja",
"pos": "proverb",
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],
"glosses": [
"something big is not necessary to handle small problems"
],
"id": "en-鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん-ja-proverb-f8nc7b4G",
"links": [
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "牛刀をもって鶏を割く"
},
{
"word": "鶏を割くにいずくんぞ牛刀を用いん"
}
]
}
],
"word": "鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん"
}
{
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"3": "割雞焉用牛刀",
"lit": "why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?",
"nocap": "1"
},
"expansion": "calque of Literary Chinese 割雞焉用牛刀 (gējī yān yòng niúdāo, literally “why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?”)",
"name": "calque"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From the Analects of Confucius, a calque of Literary Chinese 割雞焉用牛刀 (gējī yān yòng niúdāo, literally “why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?”).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん",
"ruby": [
[
"鶏",
"にわとり"
],
[
"割",
"さ"
],
[
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"ぎゅう"
],
[
"刀",
"とう"
],
[
"用",
"もち"
]
],
"tags": [
"canonical"
]
},
{
"form": "niwatori o saku ni nanzo gyūtō o mochiin",
"tags": [
"romanization"
]
},
{
"form": "鷄を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん",
"tags": [
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"kanji",
"kyūjitai"
]
}
],
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{
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"head": "鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん"
},
"expansion": "鶏(にわとり)を割(さ)くになんぞ牛(ぎゅう)刀(とう)を用(もち)いん • (niwatori o saku ni nanzo gyūtō o mochiin)",
"name": "ja-pos"
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"lang_code": "ja",
"pos": "proverb",
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"Japanese terms derived from Literary Chinese",
"Japanese terms spelled with second grade kanji",
"Japanese terms spelled with secondary school kanji",
"Japanese terms spelled with sixth grade kanji",
"Japanese terms spelled with を",
"Japanese terms spelled with 刀 read as とう",
"Japanese terms spelled with 割 read as さ",
"Japanese terms spelled with 牛 read as ぎゅう",
"Japanese terms spelled with 用 read as もち",
"Japanese terms spelled with 鶏 read as にわとり",
"Japanese terms with 5 kanji",
"Japanese terms with multiple readings",
"Japanese terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Japanese terms with redundant sortkeys",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"glosses": [
"something big is not necessary to handle small problems"
],
"links": [
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"small",
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],
[
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]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "牛刀をもって鶏を割く"
},
{
"word": "鶏を割くにいずくんぞ牛刀を用いん"
}
]
}
],
"word": "鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん"
}
Download raw JSONL data for 鶏を割くになんぞ牛刀を用いん meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-11-27 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-11-20 using wiktextract (5887622 and c6a903f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.