📖 Meaning
To sharpen one's blade and draw one's sword. It describes taking up arms or resorting to military force, usually in defiance or resistance. The idiom conveys a posture of armed opposition rather than submission.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase originates from the 'Biography of Fu Long' in the Book of Song (Song Shu), a history of the Liu Song dynasty compiled during the Southern Dynasties. Fu Long cited two classical cases of righteousness: Shi Xu of the Spring and Autumn period, who ordered the execution of his own son Shi Hou for treason against his lord, and Jin Midi of the Han dynasty, a Xiongnu noble whose loyalty was celebrated. Fu Long argued that if Shi Hou's son or Jin Midi's grandson had sharpened their blades and drawn their swords to avenge their fathers against these ancestors, then Shi Xu and the Marquis of Ducheng could never have been remembered for generations as models of virtue. Thus the idiom evokes the act of bearing arms in vengeance or defiance.
💡 Example Usage
面对外敌入侵，将士们砥锋挺锷，誓死保卫家园。
Facing foreign invasion, the soldiers sharpened their blades and drew their swords, vowing to defend their homeland to the death.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 砥锋挺锷
- Pinyin: dǐ fēng tǐng è
- Literal Translation: whet, blade, raise, sword
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4