📖 Meaning
To overcorrect an error so much that one goes beyond the proper limit, creating a new problem in the opposite direction. It warns against the human tendency to swing too far when trying to fix a mistake, missing the balanced middle ground.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from Yuan Kang's "Yue Jue Shu" (《越绝书》) during the Han Dynasty, in the chapter "Pian Xu Wai Zhuan Ji." The passage describes how a son's revenge and a minister's pursuit of justice, though sincere enough to move heaven, can become excessive — likened to a nursing dog feeding a tiger cub without weighing the consequences. Centuries later, the Qing-era scholar Liang Qichao used the phrase in his treatise on Chinese academic thought to describe how learning had stifled human nature to such an extreme that a correction was inevitable, though it too risked going too far.
💡 Example Usage
改革不能矫枉过直，否则会引发新的问题。
Reform must not overcorrect, or it will give rise to new problems.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 矫枉过直
- Pinyin: jiǎo wǎng guò zhí
- Literal Translation: rectify, crooked, exceed, straight
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4