📖 Meaning
Describes a person whose devious schemes and crafty tricks are endlessly varied. It implies someone full of bad ideas who constantly shifts tactics to deceive others. The term carries a strongly negative, distrustful tone.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from a memorial to the throne written by the Northern Song scholar-official Su Zhe, titled 'On Lü Huiqing.' Lü Huiqing was a powerful minister and protégé of Wang Anshi whose later betrayal of his patron made him notorious. Su Zhe attacked his character by saying he combined the rhetorical deceit of the Han-era official Zhang Tang with the treachery of the Tang chancellor Lu Qi, and was '诡变多端' — crafty and changeable in countless ways. The memorial helped cement Lü Huiqing's historical reputation as an arch-schemer.
💡 Example Usage
这家伙诡变多端，谁也猜不透他下一步想做什么。
That fellow is full of endless crafty schemes, and nobody can guess what he'll do next.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 诡变多端
- Pinyin: guǐ biàn duō duān
- Literal Translation: crafty, changeable, many, ends
- Category: Quality
- Characters: 4