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惊弓之鸟
战国时期（公 元前403―221年中国 中原地区各诸侯国连年争战的时代）魏国有个名叫更羸的人。一天，他对国王说：“我只要拉开弓，空射一下，就能把天上的鸟射下来。”国王不相信。更羸便对准天上飞来的一只雁射去，果真那只雁听到拉弦的声音就掉了下来。国王感到很奇怪。更羸说，“那是一只受过伤的雁。它一听到我拉开弓弦的声响，就惊慌得支持不住 ，自然要掉下来了。”
寓意1：“惊弓之鸟”这个 成 语比喻受过惊 恐之后，有一点动静就特别害怕。
寓意2：后人根据上面的故事，形成了“ 惊弓之鸟”这个成语，形容先前多次受过惊吓的人，忽然遇到同样可怕的事物，就吓得魂飞魄散，惊惶失措，不知如何去应付新的环境。
Birds Startled by the Mere Twang of a Bowstring
In the Warring States Period, there was a man inthe State of Wei called Geng Lei. One day he said to the king: 'I can shoot down birds by simply plucking my bowstring.' When the king expressed doubt, Geng Lei pointed his bow at a wild goose flying in the sky, twanged the bowstring, and the goose fell to the ground. Geng Lei said, 'This goose has been hurt in the past. Hearing the twang of the bowstring, it assumed that it was doomed. So it simply gave up trying to live.'
This idiom means that if one has been frightened in the past one's will may become paralysed in a similar situation.
Henceforth comes the idiom "A bird startled by the mere twang of a bow-string", illustrating a case where a man who had been previously and repeatedly frightened became numb and stupefied by a new thing of the same nature not knowing how to face the new situation.
example:
例 1：汤姆越狱後,时时如惊弓之鸟,生怕再次被捕 。
Since he escaped from gaol, Tom has been living on a razor's edge, terrified of recapture.
例 2： 地震之后，那个地区的人都成了惊弓之鸟，稍有风吹草动就要逃到街上去。
People there became so frightened after the quake that they would run into the streets once they sensed something wrong.
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