Clumsy imitation that makes things worse
The gap between those first two lines is the whole point of a chengyu. It is quoted whole, never assembled, and the literal reading is a picture from the story below rather than a definition — which is why translating the four characters one at a time rarely gets you there.
The famously beautiful Xi Shi had a pain in her chest, and pressed her hand to it with a frown that the village found lovely. A plain neighbour, Dongshi, copied the frown everywhere she went. The rich shut their doors and the poor left town.
Source: 《庄子》Zhuangzi, 4th century BC
The reading shown is the one each character takes inside this idiom — chengyu keep older readings, so it is not always the everyday one. The meanings are read from the same dictionary that powers the translators.
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东施效颦 is pronounced dōng shī xiào pín and means clumsy imitation that makes things worse. Literally it says "Dongshi imitates the frown" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《庄子》Zhuangzi, 4th century BC. The famously beautiful Xi Shi had a pain in her chest, and pressed her hand to it with a frown that the village found lovely. A plain neighbour, Dongshi, copied the frown everywhere she went. The rich shut their doors and the poor left town.
dōng shī xiào pín. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice. Tones here are citation tones, so 一 is written yī even where it is said yí in running speech.
东 (dōng) East (owner - host), 施 (shī) Put into practice (carry out - exert - apply), 效 (xiào) Imitate (effect - devote to). These meanings come from the same dictionary as the translators on this site, and the reading shown is the one the character takes inside this idiom.
Yes. Chengyu are not archaic — they are ordinary educated speech, and they turn up in conversation, newspapers and exams. This one sits in the intermediate band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.
Rebuild 东施效颦 from scrambled tiles in the Chengyu Story Puzzle, test yourself on idiom meanings in the Chengyu Quiz, browse all the idioms, or save this one above and review it on your review deck.
Every idiom here comes with the story it was compressed from — that is the rule for being listed, and it is why they stick.
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