📖 Meaning
To carry out a task half-heartedly or carelessly, doing just enough to get by without genuine effort or commitment. It describes someone who goes through the motions without caring about the quality of the outcome. The attitude is to simply finish the job, however poorly, and be done with it.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the Qing dynasty novel 《官场现形记》 (The Bureaucrats: A Revealing Tale) by Li Baojia (李宝嘉). In the first chapter, the author describes a chaotic ceremonial scene where people bow in inconsistent and disordered ways. Seeing their lack of uniformity, the master of ceremonies has no choice but to let them muddle through and finish the ritual half-heartedly. The phrase thus came to denote performing duties with minimum effort, merely to get through them.
💡 Example Usage
他对待工作总是敷衍了事，难怪领导对他不满意。
He always does his work half-heartedly; no wonder his boss is dissatisfied with him.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 敷衍了事
- Pinyin: fū yǎn liǎo shì
- Literal Translation: 敷衍, to do perfunctorily, 了, to finish, 事, task
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4