Talk:傾城の美人

RFV

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One hit on Google Books. Would like to hear input from the Japanese editors here. I don't speak the language, but I can't see how this can be an idiom - where's the verb? ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

It's a verbless idiom, something like femme fatale. 傾城傾国 is a synonym - "woman so glamorous as to bring ruin to a country (castle) as its king (lord) is captivated by her beauty".

Dictionary entries: 傾城の美人 and 傾城傾国. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 23:43, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I did not know this expression, but I disagree with the literal translation and suspect the definition itself could be better. --BB12 (talk) 23:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Just judging from its parts, the literal meaning should be "a city/castle-toppling beauty", with 傾城 already having an entry. As I understand it, の here just means that the part before it modifies the part after it Chuck Entz (talk) 00:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The definition is exactly as in Glosbe dictionary. Yes, it can be improved by removing the verb. It's more like a noun. The synonym 傾城傾国 appears in the free dictionary EDICT, added by volunteers. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 00:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Chuck Entz, the entry is Chinese, not Japanese. Both 傾城 and 傾国 in Japanese on their own is not just beauty but may also mean courtesan, prostitute, concubine. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 00:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• FWIW, I'm finding 傾国 as a syn for 傾城, but I'm not finding 傾城傾国 as a single term in any of my JA sources to hand. I'll have a go at reworking 傾城の美人. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

There are examples of 傾城傾国 in Google Books and in online dictionaries or in simple Google searches. It also appears as two separate expressions, often used together and also less commonly in Chinese. Vietnamese Wiki thinks 傾城傾国 is Chinese (it probably is, originally or as 傾城與傾國 "qīngchéng yǔ qīngguó") and Vietnamese has an equivalent Sino-Vietnamese term: khuynh thành khuynh quốc (傾城傾國) --Anatoli ^{(обсудить)} 01:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not denying that the term exists, I'm just not sure it's used in Japanese as an integral term. google books:"傾城傾国"+は generates 365 hits (adding the は to filter for Japanese), but enough of these hits have punctuation in the middle to suggest that this string is considered to be two separate terms that are sometimes used in conjunction. Given also that this term is not included in any of the JA-JA dictionaries I have access to at the moment, such as Kotobank, Weblio, Eijiro, or my dead-tree copies of Shogakukan and Daijirin, whereas all but Eijiro have 傾城 and 傾国 as discrete entries, I'm inclined to think that 傾城傾国 is not a set phrase in Japanese. Jim Breen's online EDICT for JA-EN does have 傾城傾国, but also 傾国傾城, which again suggests to me that this is two separate two-kanji terms that are sometimes used in conjunction.

FWIW, Daijirin gives the origin of both 傾城 and 傾国 as the line (deprecated template usage) 一顧傾人城、再顧傾人国 from the w:Book of Han, in Table of nobles from families of the imperial consorts Biographies of the Empresses and Imperial Affines (#18 #97 in the table in the WP article); Shogakukan says almost the same, but without mentioning the specific part of the Book of Han. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 02:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC) Edited to fix source. Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 02:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

傾城の美人 is a common phrase but probably a sum of parts by the Wiktionary standard. You can say 傾城の美女, 傾国の美人, 傾国の美女, 傾城傾国の美人, 傾城傾国の美女 quite arbitrarily. Note that 傾城 used alone is different from that in 傾城の美人. The former means a extremely beautiful woman or a courtesan and the latter means "enough to ruin the castle" used only to describe a beautiful woman. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 05:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

{{look}}

I will redirect this as SOP per TAKASUGI Shinji if no-one argues against that. - -sche (discuss) 21:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. I note that the full term continued to lack examples of use. - -sche (discuss) 19:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to continue discussion here if you disagree with how I closed this. - -sche (discuss) 05:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)