📖 Meaning
To lower one's aspirations and conform to prevailing vulgar customs. It describes someone who abandons their personal standards or ideals in order to accommodate commonplace trends and expectations.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase reflects a classical Chinese philosophical concern with the tension between personal integrity and societal conformity. While no single definitive source is recorded, the expression draws on the broader tradition of Confucian and Daoist debates about whether a person should uphold high principles or adapt to worldly norms. The term 降心 appears in early texts denoting the humbling of one's ambitions, and 顺俗 connotes yielding to popular habits. Together they capture the act of compromising one's resolve for the sake of social acceptance.
💡 Example Usage
面对官场的腐败，他不愿降心顺俗，毅然辞官归隐。
Faced with corruption in officialdom, he refused to lower his standards and conform to vulgar customs, resolutely resigning to live in seclusion.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 降心顺俗
- Pinyin: jiàng xīn shùn sú
- Literal Translation: lower, heart, follow, customs
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4