noun
person or thing in imminent danger; fish on the chopping board
A classical metaphor for someone or something in a desperate, life-threatening situation, like a fish in a drying puddle. Extremely rare in modern Japanese; encountered mainly in literary or historical texts.
轍鮒の急を救う。
To rescue someone from imminent danger (literally, to save a fish in a drying rut).
From Chinese 轍鮒／辙鲋 (zhéfù), literally 'a fish in a wheel rut', a metaphor for someone in dire straits. The exact historical derivation is uncertain; the spelling is conventionally associated with this meaning.