







刻画无盐,唐突西施 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to make an inappropriate comparison between someone beautiful and someone ugly, thereby diminishing or insulting the beautiful one”. Literally, “Drawing Wuyan, offending Xishi”.
In the early Eastern Jin Dynasty, Zhou Yi, a highly respected official serving as Shangshu Pushe (Minister of the Secretariat), was known for his exceptional humility. People often drew parallels between him and Le Guang, another prominent official holding the position of Shangshu Ling (President of the Imperial Secretariat), praising both for their outstanding talent and high moral integrity.
Zhou Yi, in his modesty, said, "To compare me with him is to profane him; it's like portraying Wuyan and insulting Xishi."

Turn a Chinese character or sentence into a GIF or MP4
Open the tool →
Chinese and English fill-in vocabulary worksheets
Open the tool →
Picture and word Bingo for your class
Open the tool →
Create PNGs with pinyin, highlight character parts or remove strokes
Open the tool →刻画无盐,唐突西施 (kè huà wú yán , táng tū xī shī) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to make an inappropriate comparison between someone beautiful and someone ugly, thereby diminishing or insulting the beautiful one”.
刻画无盐,唐突西施 is pronounced kè huà wú yán , táng tū xī shī in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 刻画无盐,唐突西施 means “Drawing Wuyan, offending Xishi”. It is used to mean “to make an inappropriate comparison between someone beautiful and someone ugly, thereby diminishing or insulting the beautiful one”.
刻画无盐,唐突西施 comes from a classical Chinese story dating back to ancient China. The full story is on this page.
刻画:描绘;无盐:战国时齐国的丑女;唐突:冒犯;西施:春秋时越国美女。比喻拿丑的和美的比较,冒犯与贬低了美的