📖 Meaning
To scheme and plot using clever calculations. It describes someone who uses cunning and stratagems to achieve their goals, often at others' expense. The term carries a negative connotation of manipulation and deceit.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom appears in classical Chinese literature as a variant of the more common form 使心用倖. It reflects the traditional Chinese moral view that using schemes and trickery to gain advantage is beneath a person of integrity. No single definitive origin story is recorded, but the expression embodies the age-old Confucian critique of cunning behavior.
💡 Example Usage
他处处使心作倖，到头来机关算尽反误了自身前程。
He schemed and plotted everywhere, only to have his calculations backfire and ruin his own future.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 使心作倖
- Pinyin: shǐ xīn zuò xìng
- Literal Translation: use, mind, do, luck
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4