📖 Meaning
Describes someone who offers frank remonstrance and candid advice in an unceasing, eloquent torrent, as if words flow like a rushing stream. It conveys fearless, persistent, and articulate criticism directed at a superior or ruler, without holding back.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom appears in the Ming-dynasty play 'Admiring Chrysanthemums by the Eastern Fence' (《东篱赏菊》) by an anonymous author, in Act Two. The line reads: 'What reason is there to follow a father's command, what reason to follow a ruler's command? Facing axes and halberds, remonstrance flows like a stream.' It depicts a loyal minister who risks his life to speak bluntly before his lord, emphasizing the virtue of fearless, unending admonition. The play draws on the broader Confucian tradition of loyal remonstrance (谏诤), where a subject's duty is to correct the ruler's faults even at great personal peril.
💡 Example Usage
他生性耿直，面对君王谏争如流，从未退缩。
By nature upright and outspoken, he remonstrated ceaselessly before the king and never once backed down.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 谏争如流
- Pinyin: jiàn zhēng rú liú
- Literal Translation: admonish, argue, like, flowing
- Category: Communication
- Characters: 4