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不要脸 (bù yào liǎn) — shameless, brazen, having no sense of shame

Definition

Colloquial, strongly insulting 'shameless, brazen' — used to scold someone for behaving without 脸面 (sense of shame). More vulgar and direct than the neutral 无耻.

adjective
shamelessbrazenhaving no sense of shame

Examples

  • ，不要脸！
    Tā jū rán shuō chū zhè zhǒng huà, zhēn bù yào liǎn!
    He actually said something like that — how shameless!
  • 不要脸，！
    Nǐ bù yào liǎn, tōu ná bié rén de dōng xī!
    You have no shame, stealing other people's things!
  • 不要脸。
    Tā bù yào liǎn dì sā huǎng shuō zì jǐ zhōng le cǎi piào.
    She brazenly lied that she had won the lottery.

Origin

Characters in this word

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.

Open 不 →

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

要 began as a drawing of a person with both hands pointing to the waist.

Open 要 →

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 臉; 脸 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
⺼Written in full as肉ròubody part
Sound part声符shēngfú
僉
僉qiān臉liǎn
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 臉 combines ⺼ (肉, body part) with 僉 as a sound part; the simplified 脸 is a later abbreviation.

Open 脸 →
Appears in
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