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| Traditional Chinese | 成語 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 成语 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chengyu (traditional Chinese:成語;simplified Chinese:成语;pinyin:chéngyǔ;trans. "set phrase") are a type of traditional Chineseidiomatic expressions, most of which consist of fourChinese characters.Chengyu were widely used inLiterary Chinese and are still common inwritten vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000chengyu in theChinese language, though some dictionaries list over 20,000.Chengyu are considered the collected wisdom of theChinese culture, and contain the experiences, moral concepts, and admonishments from previous generations of Chinese speakers.Chengyu still play an important role in Chinese conversation and education.[1][2] Chinese idioms are one of four types of formulaic expressions (熟语;熟語;shúyǔ), which also include collocations (惯用语;慣用語;guànyòngyǔ), two-part allegorical sayings calledxiehouyu, and proverbs (谚语;諺語;yànyǔ).
While not the only idioms in Chinese, and not always four characters long, they are often referred to asChinese idioms orfour-character idioms.
Chengyu are mostly derived fromancient literature, including the pre-Qin classics, poetry from all periods of Chinese history, and late imperial vernacular novels and short stories. A small number were constructed in the 19th and early 20th centuries from Western source materials. Among the early classical literature, the lyrical imagery from theClassic of Poetry, and the detailed stories recorded in theZuo Zhuan and theRecords of the Grand Historian serve as particularly rich source materials for chengyu. Since theShijing poems consist of four-character lines, somechengyu are direct quotes from theClassic of Poetry. For example,萬夀無疆 'ten-thousand year lifespan without bound', a traditional expression to wish someone a long life that often appears on bowls and tableware, quotes the poem "Tian Bao" (天保, poem #166) in the Lesser Court Hymns section of theClassic of Poetry. More commonly, however,chengyu are created by succinctly paraphrasing or summarizing the original text, usually by selecting the most salient characters from the passage in question and inserting any necessary classical grammatical particles.
As such,chengyu are fossilized expressions that use the vocabulary and follow the syntactic rules ofLiterary Chinese. Consequently, they convey information more compactly than normal vernacular speech or writing. They may contain subject and predicate and act as an independent clause (or even twin two-character independent clauses in parallel), or they may play the role of any part of speech in a sentence, acting syntactically as an adjective, adverb, verb, or noun phrase. In both speech and writing, they serve to succinctly convey a complex or multifaceted situation, scene, or concept, and used fittingly and elegantly, they also mark a speaker or writer's erudition.
The meaning of achengyu usually surpasses the sum of the meanings carried by the four characters, aschengyu are generally meant to convey the message or moral of the myth, story or historical event from which they were derived. Thus, even after translation into modern words and syntax,chengyu in isolation are often unintelligible without additional explanation. Since they often contain a classical allusion, known as adiǎngù (典故), elementary and secondary school students in greater China learnchengyu as part of the classical curriculum in order to study the context from which thechengyu was born.
Often the four characters reflect the moral behind the story rather than the story itself. For example, the phrase "破釜沉舟" (pò fǔ chén zhōuⓘ, lit: "break the pots and sink the ships") is based on a historical account where the generalXiang Yu ordered his troops to destroy allcooking utensils and boats after crossing a river into the enemy's territory. He won the battle because of this "no-retreat" strategy. Thus, the idiom is used as a verb phrase with the meaning "to make an all-out effort to achieve success by the deliberate removal of recourse or backup." Similar phrases are known in the West, such as "Burning one's boats", "burning one's bridges", "Point of no return" or "Crossing the Rubicon".
Another example is瓜田李下 (guātián lǐxiàⓘ 'melon field, beneath the plums'), whose meaning relates to the appearance of misconduct or impropriety. It is derived from an excerpt of aHan-era poem (樂府詩《君子行》,Yuèfǔ Shī "Jūnzǐ Xíng"). The poem includes the lines 'don't adjust your shoes in a melon field, and don't tidy your hat under the plum trees' (瓜田不納履，李下不整冠,guā tián bù nà lǚ, lǐ xià bù zhěng guānⓘ), admonishing the reader to avoid situations where, however innocent, he might be suspected of doing wrong. The idiom is impossible to understand without the background knowledge of the origin of the phrase.
Some idioms have had their literal meanings overtake their original ones. For example, 'wind from an empty cave' (空穴來風,kōng xué lái fēng), despite now being used to describe rumors without source, originally referred to rumors with actual, solid sources or reasons. Likewise, 'bare-faced facing the emperor' (素面朝天) is now used to describe beauty that does not require make-up, e.g., when entering court, while its original meaning was "to be confident in one's true look".
However, not allchengyu have stories to draw morals from. An example is言而無信 'speaking, yet without trust', referring to one who cannot be trusted despite what he says, an essentially deceitful person. It is generally acknowledged as achengyu as it comes from theAnalects. The idiom is succinct in its original meaning and would likely be intelligible to anyone learned in formal written Chinese, thoughyán (言) is no longer commonly used as a verb.
There are a fewchengyu that are not four characters in length. An example is the seven-character醉翁之意不在酒 'The Old Drunkard's attention is not directed towards his wine'. This is a direct quote fromOuyang Xiu's essayAn Account of Old Drunkard's Pavilion (醉翁亭記), in which the author, as the Old Drunkard, expresses his true intention of enjoying the scenery of the mountains and rivers as he drinks. As an idiom, it expresses the situation where one does something with an ulterior though benign motive in mind.
Somechengyu have English equivalents. For example,言不由衷 'speak not from the bosom' and 'to speak with one's tongue in one's cheek' share idiomatic meanings. The Chinese not having conducted maritime explorations of the North Atlantic during imperial times, the expression冰山一角 'one corner of an ice mountain' is a rare example of achengyu that emerged in the early 20th century after contact with the West as a translation of the expression "tip of the iceberg," thus sharing both their literal and idiomatic meanings.[3] Another expression火中取栗 'extracting chestnuts from the fire', originating from aLa Fontaine fable, means "to be duped into taking risks for someone else," used in much the same way as the expression "cat's paw" in English is another example of an "international"chengyu. Though they are recent in origin, they are constructed using the vocabulary and syntax of Literary Chinese and fits within the four-character scheme, making themchengyu.
Chinese idioms can also serve as a guide through Chinese culture.Chengyu teach about motifs that were previously common in Chinese literature and culture. For example, idioms with nature motifs – e.g., mountains, water, and the Moon – are numerous. Works considered masterpieces of Chinese literature – such as theFour Great Classical Novels[4] – serve as the source for many idioms, which in turn condense and retell the story.
All Chinese people know idioms, though the total number known by any one individual will depend on their background. Idioms are such an important part of Chinese popular culture that there is a game called成語接龍 'connect the chengyu' that involves someone calling out an idiom, with someone else then being supposed to think of another idiom to link up with the first one, so that the last character of the first idiom is the same as the first character of the second idiom, and so forth.
The following three examples show that the meaning of the idiom can be totally different by only changing one character.
| Chengyu | Gloss | Meaning | Etymology |
|---|---|---|---|
| 一箭雙鵰 | kill two eagles with one arrow | kill two birds with one stone, i.e. to achieve two aims at once | SeeHistory of the Northern Dynasties |
| 破釜沉舟 | break the cauldrons and sink the boats | burn bridges, i.e. commit oneself irrevocably | SeeBattle of Julu |
| 指鹿為馬 | call a deer a horse | deliberately misrepresent | SeeZhao Gao |
| 樂不思蜀 | so happy as to forgetShu | indulge in pleasures | SeeLiu Shan |
| 朝三暮四 | to say three in the morning and four in the evening | always changing (new meaning), a change without any substantive difference (original meaning) | SeeZhuangzi |
| 井底之蛙 | a frog in the bottom of the well | a person with limited outlook | SeeZhuangzi |
| 磨杵成針 | grind an iron bar down to a fine needle | to persevere in a difficult task | SeeLi Bai |
| 守株待兔 | guard a tree-stump to wait for rabbits | wait idly for a reward | SeeHan Feizi |
| 亡羊補牢 | to mend the pen after sheep are lost | close the stable door after the horse has bolted, i.e. try too late to prevent harm | SeeWarring States Records |
| 三人成虎 | Three men make a tiger | repeated rumor becomes a fact | SeeWarring States Records |
| 完璧歸趙 | returnthe jade toZhao | to return something intact to its rightful owner[5]: 24 | SeeMr. He's jade |
| 塞翁失馬 | old man from the frontier lost his horse | a blessing in disguise | SeeHuainanzi |
| 刻舟求劍 | carve the boat in search of the sword | approach without considering the reality of a situation | SeeLüshi Chunqiu |
| 火中取栗 | take chestnuts out of the fire | Someone acting in another's interest (cat's-paw) | Derived fromThe Monkey and the Cat |
| 負荊請罪 | carrying a bramble and ask for punishment | offer a humble apology | SeeLian Po |
| 紙上談兵 | talk about military tactics on paper | theoretical discussion useless in practice | SeeZhao Kuo |
| 畫蛇添足 | to add feet when drawing a snake | to improve something unnecessarily | SeeWarring States Records |
| 畫龍點睛 | to add eyes when painting a dragon | adding the finishing touch to something | SeeZhang Sengyou |
| 對牛彈琴 | playing theguqin to a cow | to communicate well, you need to understand your audience | SeeMouzi Lihuolun |
| 狼吞虎嚥 | swallow like tiger and devour like wolf | eating food quickly and in a messy manner | |
| 衣錦還鄉 | to wear embroided clothing and return to one's hometown | return to humble origins after making it big | |
| 易如反掌 | as easy as turning over one's hand | for something to be very easy | SeeMencius |
Yojijukugo is the similar format inJapanese. The termyojijukugo (四字熟語, four character idiom) isautological. Many of these idioms were adopted from their Chinese counterparts and have the same or similar meaning as in Chinese. The termkoji seigo (故事成語, historical idiom) refers to an idiom that comes from a specific text as the source. As such, the overwhelming majority ofkoji seigo comes from accounts of history written in classical Chinese. Although a great many of the Japanese four-character idioms are derived from the Chinese, many others are purely Japanese in origin. Some examples:
The Korean equivalent aresajaseongeo (Korean: 사자성어;Hanja: 四字成語).[6] They have similar categorization to Japanese ones, such asgosaseongeo (고사성어;故事成語) for historical idioms.[7]
Four word idioms or any idiom in Vietnamese are known asthành ngữ (chữ Hán: 成語, literally "set phrase/speech"). A large amount of idioms originating from Classical Chinese have been borrowed into the language, but there exists native counterparts to the Classical Chinese idioms. There are also many idioms that are Vietnamese in origin. Vietnamese idioms can be classified into Sino-Vietnamese idioms (Vietnamese: thành ngữ Hán Việt,chữ Hán Nôm: 成語漢越) and native Vietnamese idioms (Vietnamese: thành ngữ thuần Việt,chữ Hán Nôm: 成語純越) that were once written inchữ Nôm, are now written in the Latin-basedVietnamese alphabet.
| Classical Chinese (Hán văn, 漢文) | Vietnamese alphabet (chữ Quốc Ngữ, 𡨸國語) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 否極泰來 | Bĩ cực thái lai | The darkest hour is just before the dawn "The worst situation comes before a good one." |
| 相親相愛 | Tương thân tương ái | To be altruistic and charitable to each other, especially in times of crisis or disaster |
| 盡善盡美 | Tận thiện tận mỹ | Very good or beautiful |
| 溫故知新 | Ôn cố tri tân | One should be able to derive new understanding while revising what one has learned. |
| 全心全意 | Toàn tâm toàn ý | With all of one's heart; completely dedicated |
| Chữ Hán Nôm (𡨸漢喃) | Vietnamese alphabet (chữ Quốc Ngữ, 𡨸國語) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 𫗒𠰳𫡽𠰳 | Ăn miếng trả miếng | Tit for tat; literally, "eat a piece, pay back a piece" |
| 𢢂𨐮𢢂𧃵 | Ghét cay ghét đắng | To have an extreme and utter hatred, literally, "Hate spiciness, hate bitterness" |
| 幔𡗶𥴜𡐙 | Màn trời chiếu đất | A situation where many people become homeless, especially after a disaster; literally, "to use the sky as a curtain and the land as a mat" |
| 厭𣵰羅鐄 | Im lặng là vàng | Peace and quiet have great value; literally, "Peace and quiet is golden" |
| 𨕭𤠅𠖈㹥 | Lên voi xuống chó | To have ups and downs in one's life, to go from riches to rags; literally, "Going up on an elephant, going down on a dog" |
The plot of the Taiwanese comedy-dramaGG Precinct centres on people murdered for misquoting Chinese idioms.[8][9][10]
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