黄公好谦 — “To be excessively modest or to feign humility”

黄公好谦 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to be excessively modest or to feign humility”. Often to the point of being misleading or insincere. Literally, “Duke Huang loves modesty”.

Frequency

黄公好谦 Pronunciation and Pinyin

黄公好谦 Character Breakdown

Stroke Order

Character	Pinyin	Strokes	Meaning
黄	huáng	11	yellow color
公	gōng	4	public, common, impartial
好	hǎo	6	good, well, okay, very
谦	qiān	12	humble and modest

Example Sentence with 黄公好谦

他虽然成绩斐然，却总是黄公好谦，不肯承认自己的优点。

Although he achieved remarkable results, he always displayed 'Huang Gong's excessive modesty', unwilling to acknowledge his own strengths.

Origin and Story of 黄公好谦

In the State of Qi, there lived a man named Duke Huang, who was known for his extreme modesty. He had two exceptionally beautiful daughters, yet he would always humbly disparage them, claiming they were ugly.

Consequently, no one came to propose marriage, and his daughters missed their prime marriageable age.

Eventually, an old bachelor from the State of Wei, acting somewhat impulsively, married one of them.

To his great surprise, he discovered she was a woman of breathtaking beauty. He then told everyone, 'Duke Huang is excessively modest; he deliberately said his daughters were not beautiful.'