📖 Meaning
A metaphor for thoroughly reforming oneself and starting life anew. It is synonymous with the idiom '革面洗心' (washing the heart and changing the face). The expression describes a complete transformation of both outward behavior and inner attitude, leaving one's former wrongdoings behind entirely.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase originates from a work by the Ming Dynasty scholar Yang Shen (杨慎), titled '送薛曲泉之镇雄勘夷手卷词' (a farewell poem for Xue Quanquan dispatched to Zhenxiong to investigate frontier affairs). In the text, Yang Shen mocks cowardly people who fear consequences at every turn, compares them to a leopard undergoing nine transformations, and expresses the hope that people would reform their hearts and faces, bestowing kindness selflessly upon others. The idiom later came to signify a person's complete and sincere moral turnaround.
💡 Example Usage
经过这次深刻的教育，他终于革面革心，重新做人。
After this profound lesson, he finally reformed himself completely and started his life anew.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 革面革心
- Pinyin: gé miàn gé xīn
- Literal Translation: change face, change heart
- Category: Recovery
- Characters: 4