遺臭萬年

See also: 遗臭万年

Chinese

to lose; to leave behind
sense of smell; smell bad; stench
sense of smell; smell bad; stench; stink; smelly; to smell (bad)
 
 ten thousand years; all ages; eternity
trad. (遺臭萬年) 遺 臭 萬年
simp. (遗臭万年) 遗 臭 万年
Literally: “to leave a stink for ten thousand years”.

Etymology

From A New Account of the Tales of the World:

既而屈起坐曰：「既不能流芳後世，亦不足復遺臭萬載邪？」 [Literary Chinese, trad.]
既而屈起坐曰：「既不能流芳后世，亦不足复遗臭万载邪？」 [Literary Chinese, simp.]
From: Liu Yiqing (editor), A New Account of the Tales of the World, 5th century CE
Jì'ér qūqǐ zuò yuē: “Jì bùnéng liúfāng hòushì, yì bùzú fù yí chòu wàn zǎi yé?” [Pinyin]
Then, after crouching and getting up from his seat, he (Huan Wen) continued, "Even if I can't let my fragrance be wafted down to later generations, does that mean I'm incapable of leaving behind a stench for ten thousand years?"

In Literary Chinese, 載／载 (zǎi) means the same here as 年 (nián).

Pronunciation

Idiom

遺臭萬年

  1. to go down in history as a byword of infamy

Antonyms

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.