滔天大罪 (tāo tiān dà zuì) — (idiom) monstrous crimes; heinous crimes that reach the heavens

Definition

A four-character idiom for 'heinous crimes so great they reach the heavens' — strongly literary, used in formal writing or speeches about betrayal or atrocity, not everyday speech.

idiom
monstrous crimesheinous crimes that reach the heavens

Examples

  • 滔天大罪，。
    Tā fàn le tāo tiān dà zuì, zuì zhōng shòu dào le fǎ lǜ de yán chéng.
    He committed a monstrous crime and eventually received severe punishment from the law.
  • 滔天大罪。
    Lì shǐ shàng qīn lüè zhě fàn xià de tāo tiān dà zuì yǒng yuǎn bú huì bèi yí wàng.
    The monstrous crimes committed by aggressors in history will never be forgotten.
  • 滔天大罪。
    Zhè zhǒng bèi pàn guó jiā de xíng wéi jiǎn zhí shì tāo tiān dà zuì.
    This act of betraying the country is simply a monstrous crime.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

滔天overflow to heaven
滔tāooverflow天tiānheaven
动宾Verb + object
大罪great crimes
大dàgreat罪zuìcrime
偏正Modifier + head

The image of 滔天, overflowing to 天, magnifies the 大罪 into something vast and heinous.

Characters in this word

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Open 滔 →

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
大大dà
Sound part声符shēngfú
丁
丁dīng天tiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The shape comes from a frontal standing man 大 with a head; 天 pairs 大 with 丁 for sound.

Open 天 →

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

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

Open 大 →

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

罪 puts 罒 (a net, written fully as 网) over 非 (mistake).

Open 罪 →

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