📖 Meaning
This idiom means correcting a deviation or error but going beyond the necessary limit, overshooting the mark in the course of setting things right. It describes remedial measures that are so excessive that a new problem is created while trying to fix an old one. The character 挢 is the original classical form of the more common 矫.
📜 Origin Story
In the Eastern Han dynasty, historian Ban Gu (班固) wrote the Book of Han (汉书), a monumental dynastic history. In the preface to its 'Table of the Feudal Princes' (诸侯王表序), he reviewed how the Qin dynasty abolished feudal enfeoffment and how the early Han overcorrected by enfeoffing princes so lavishly that the largest kingdoms spanned provinces, commanded dozens of cities, and maintained palaces and officials on par with the imperial capital. Ban Gu concluded that such a state of affairs could be described as '挢枉过其正矣' — bending a crooked thing past the point of straightness, that is, overcorrecting. From this passage the idiom, traditionally written 矫枉过正, was derived.
💡 Example Usage
整顿市场秩序不可挢枉过正，以免误伤正常经营。
When rectifying market order, one must not overcorrect, lest it unfairly harm normal businesses.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 挢枉过正
- Pinyin: jiǎo wǎng guò zhèng
- Literal Translation: straighten, crooked, exceed, upright
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4