📖 Meaning
A blade so sharp that placing a hair on its edge and blowing gently will slice the hair clean through. It vividly describes swords or knives of exceptional sharpness. The phrase is commonly used in martial arts literature and everyday speech to praise a weapon's cutting edge.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom has no single literary origin or historical anecdote attached to it; rather, it is a descriptive phrase that arose from the practical test of a blade's sharpness. In ancient China, swordsmiths and warriors would judge a weapon's quality by laying a strand of hair across the edge and exhaling upon it — if the hair parted effortlessly, the blade was deemed superbly forged. The expression gained widespread currency through wuxia (martial arts) novels, where it became a stock descriptor for legendary weapons alongside similar phrases. It continues to be used in modern Chinese to describe any extraordinarily sharp blade.
💡 Example Usage
这把宝剑极为锋利，堪称吹毛利刃。
This sword is so exceedingly sharp that it can truly be called a hair-cutting blade.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 吹毛利刃
- Pinyin: chuī máo lì rèn
- Literal Translation: blow, hair, sharp, blade
- Category: Quality
- Characters: 4