狐假虎威出自西汉刘向编订的《战国策·楚策一》。故事是楚国大臣江乙讲给楚宣王听的：「虎求百兽而食之，得狐。」狐狸骗老虎说自己是天帝派来的百兽之长，让老虎跟在它身后走一圈，百兽见了纷纷逃走，老虎还以为大家怕的是狐狸。

The Fox Borrows the Tigers Might comes from the Strategies of the Warring States, compiled by Liu Xiang of the Western Han, in the section on the state of Chu. The tale was told by the Chu minister Jiang Yi to King Xuan of Chu: a tiger hunted all the beasts for food and caught a fox. The fox claimed the Lord of Heaven had made it king of the animals and told the tiger to follow behind it; all the animals fled, and the tiger thought they were afraid of the fox.

江乙讲这个寓言其实另有用意：北方各国害怕的，并不是楚国大将昭奚恤本人，而是他背后楚王的军队，就像百兽怕的是老虎而不是狐狸。两千多年过去，「狐假虎威」成了常用成语，用来形容借着别人的势力吓唬人。

Jiang Yi had a hidden point: the northern states were not really afraid of the Chu general Zhao Xixu himself, but of the king of Chu army behind him, just as the animals feared the tiger, not the fox. More than two thousand years later, the phrase is a common idiom for someone who scares others by borrowing another person power.

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