📖 Meaning
When the sun reaches its highest point at noon, it inevitably begins to move downward. Figuratively, it describes how any thing, once it develops to a peak, will begin to turn in the opposite direction. It conveys the dialectical idea that extremes are followed by reversal.
📜 Origin Story
No specific origin story or source text is recorded for this idiom in classical literature, and it does not appear as a standalone quotation in the received classics. It is a variant form of the more established idiom 日中则昃, whose earliest known source is the Book of Changes (易经), specifically the hexagram Feng (丰卦), which states: '日中则昃,月盈则食' (When the sun reaches noon it begins to decline; when the moon becomes full it begins to wane). That passage, attributed to the Zhou dynasty tradition and later expounded in the Ten Wings, expresses the same natural-law observation that peak states inevitably give way to decline, and 日中则移 carries that shared philosophical meaning.
💡 Example Usage
日中则移，再辉煌的事业也有走向低谷的一天。
When the sun passes its zenith it must descend; even the most glorious undertaking will one day head toward its low point.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 日中则移
- Pinyin: rì zhōng zé yí
- Literal Translation: sun, zenith, then, moves
- Category: Philosophy
- Characters: 4