全豹 (quánbào): the full picture

Meanings

1 the full picture
2 the whole panorama
3 the complete situation

Characters

全

Examples

仅看片段，难窥全豹。

Jǐn kàn piànduàn, nán kuī quánbào.

Looking at fragments alone, it's hard to glimpse the whole picture.

这份报告让我们看到了事件的全豹。

Zhè fèn bàogào ràng wǒmen kàndào le shìjiàn de quánbào.

This report lets us see the full picture of the incident.

Tips

history

From 世说新语·方正 — a young Wang Xianzhi (王献之, Wáng Xiànzhī) watched players over their shoulders and was scolded: '管中窥豹，时见一斑' (gazing at a leopard through a tube, one only sees a single spot). 全豹 ('the whole leopard') is the contrast — seeing the entire animal, the complete picture.

usage

Almost always appears in the patterns 难窥全豹 (hard to see the whole), 略见全豹 (catch a partial glimpse of the whole), or paired with 一斑 (yìbān, one spot) for explicit contrast.