说一不二 (shuō yī bù èr) — to mean what one says, to be a person of one's…

Definition

A chengyu praising someone whose word is absolutely reliable — their promises always hold. Stronger and more literary than the plain '说到做到'.

idiom

to mean what one saysto be a person of one's wordto stand by one's promise

说一不二，。
Tā xiàng lái shuō yī bù èr, nǐ wán quán kě yǐ xìn rèn tā.
He has always been a man of his word; you can trust him completely.
说一不二，。
Zhè wèi lǎo bǎn shuō yī bù èr, shuō gěi yuán gōng jiā xīn jiù yí dìng huì jiā.
This boss means what he says; if he says he'll give employees a raise, he definitely will.
，说一不二，。
Wǒ men qiān le hé tong, shuō yī bù èr, bù néng fǎn huǐ.
We signed the contract — our word is our bond, we can't back out.

Characters in this word

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 說; 说 is its simplified writing.

言兌說

Meaning part形符xíngfú

Sound part声符shēngfú

兌

兌duì說shuō

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 說 pairs 言 (meaning) with 兌 (sound); the simplified 说 is not the form described here.

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

一 is drawn as one horizontal stroke, marking the number one.

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The picture in 不 originally showed a flower’s calyx; the “no” sense came later from a related character, not from this picture.

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

二 is drawn as two parallel strokes, where the number of strokes shows the amount.