倒行逆施

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Chinese

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upside down; inverted to do opposite; contrary to do
trad. (倒行逆施)
simp. #(倒行逆施)

Etymology

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《史記·伍子胥列傳》:

伍子胥:「申包胥,『日莫。』」 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
伍子胥:「申包胥,『日莫。』」 [Classical Chinese, simp.]
From: The Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian, c. 91 BCE
Wǔ Zǐxū yuē: “Wèi wǒ xiè Shēn Bāoxū yuē, ‘wú rìmù túyuǎn, wú gù dǎoxíng ér shī zhī.’” [Pinyin]
Wu Zixu said: "Go apologise on my behalf to Shen Baoxu, and tell him that I had had still a long way to travel but the sun was already setting, and that I, therefore, turned my ways upside down." (i.e., My life had always been in peril and my great objective of exacting revenge had been almost beyond reach, yet life was already running out. Therefore, I no longer cared whether my means to the end was perverted.)

Pronunciation

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Idiom

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倒行逆施

  1. to do things in a perverse way; to go against good; to commit evil deeds