📖 Meaning
To revere and praise the past while belittling or being harsh toward the present. It describes a mindset that idealizes antiquity and dismisses contemporary people, ideas, or works as inferior. The phrase is a variant of the more common expression 荣古虐今.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase embodies a long-standing tension in Chinese intellectual culture, where reverence for the ancients was often tied to Confucian notions of a lost golden age. Such language appears in the writings of Tang and Song dynasty literati who measured contemporary literature against classical models. Variants like 荣古虐今 circulated among scholars critical of those who refused to acknowledge merit in their own era. The formulation 荣古陋今 sharpens the contrast by pairing 荣 (to honor) with 陋 (to regard as vulgar or inferior). It survives chiefly as a literary expression describing conservative intellectual attitudes.
💡 Example Usage
这位老学者荣古陋今，总觉得今人的文章远不及古人。
The elderly scholar glorifies the ancients and disparages the present, convinced that contemporary prose can never match the masters of old.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 荣古陋今
- Pinyin: róng gǔ lòu jīn
- Literal Translation: glorify the ancient, disparage the present
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4