📖 Meaning
Literally 'a horse that harms the herd,' this idiom describes a person who brings trouble or damage to the group they belong to. It refers to a bad element within a community, team, or organization whose behavior negatively affects everyone else, much like a black sheep or a rotten apple.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the Daoist classic 'Zhuangzi' (《庄子》), specifically the chapter 'Xu Wugui' (徐无鬼), written during the Warring States period around the 4th century BCE. In a dialogue, the philosopher Zhuangzi compares governing the world to herding horses, arguing that a wise ruler, like a good herdsman, need only remove the one horse that disrupts the entire herd. The metaphor was later condensed into the four-character idiom '害群之马' to describe any person whose presence is detrimental to the collective.
💡 Example Usage
公司里这几个害群之马必须尽快清理出去。
These few bad apples in the company must be rooted out as soon as possible.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 害群之马
- Pinyin: hài qún zhī mǎ
- Literal Translation: harm, herd, possessive particle, horse
- Category: Quality
- Characters: 4