📖 Meaning
To interfere in other people's business when it is not one's own concern. It describes unnecessary meddling that is usually unwelcome and often causes annoyance or trouble. The phrase criticizes someone for poking their nose into matters that do not involve them.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from the classic Qing dynasty chivalric novel Three Heroes and Five Gallants (三侠五义), attributed to Shi Yukun and completed in the nineteenth century. In chapter 44, a character snaps at an uninvited helper, saying, "You are extremely rude — who told you to meddle in others' affairs?" The line captures the era's social expectation that one should mind one's own business unless called upon, and the expression has since become a standard rebuke for nosy interference in everyday speech.
💡 Example Usage
这件事和你没关系，你就别多管闲事了。
This has nothing to do with you, so stop meddling in other people's business.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 多管闲事
- Pinyin: duō guǎn xián shì
- Literal Translation: much, meddle, idle, affairs
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4