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朝三暮四 (zhāo sān mù sì) — to be fickle; to change one's mind repeatedly; to blow hot and cold; to be inconsistent

Definition

A chengyu for someone who keeps changing their mind on what they already agreed to — 'fickle, blows hot and cold.' Unlike 犹豫 (a personal feeling of hesitation), 朝三暮四 implies breaking a prior commitment, which is why others lose trust.

phrase
to be fickleto change one's mind repeatedlyto blow hot and coldto be inconsistent

Examples

  • 朝三暮四，。
    Tā zhè ge rén zǒng shì zhāo sān mù sì, suǒ yǐ dà jiā dōu bú tài xiāng xìn tā.
    He is always fickle, so people don't really trust him.
  • ，朝三暮四。
    Nǐ yǐ jīng dā ying le bié rén, jiù bù néng zhāo sān mù sì.
    You've already agreed with others, so you can't blow hot and cold.
  • 朝三暮四，。
    Tā zài gōng zuò zhōng yě cháng zhāo sān mù sì, ràng rén hěn tóu téng.
    She is also often indecisive at work, which really gives people a headache.

Origin

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

Originally, 朝 showed the sun rising above the ground while the moon was still in the sky, giving the sense of morning.

Open 朝 →

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

三 is drawn as three parallel strokes, like 一 with one stroke and 二 with two.

Open 三 →

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú
日日rì
Sound part声符shēngfú
莫
莫mò暮mù
Same sound today

暮 adds 日 (sun) to 莫, the older picture of the sun setting. The added 日 marks the time of sunset.

Open 暮 →

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

The form 四 was drawn as a nose breathing out. It later came to be used for the word four.

Open 四 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 7-9

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