📖 Meaning
Describes someone who is extremely stubborn and inflexible, refusing to adapt or change their ways even in the face of persuasion or new circumstances. The idiom emphasizes both unyielding obstinacy and an inability to be moved or transformed.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom appears in Guo Moruo's play 'Tangdi Zhi Hua' (棠棣之花), Act 3, Scene 1, where a character remarks of Yan Zhongzi: 'His stubborn obstinacy, you well understand.' Although the phrase was recorded in this modern work rather than a classical classic, the play itself is set in the Warring States period and retells the story of the assassin Nie Zheng. Through this dramatic dialogue, the term came to capture the idea of a person locked in stubbornness who cannot be persuaded or changed.
💡 Example Usage
他顽梗不化，无论别人怎么劝说都不肯改变自己的决定。
He is incorrigibly stubborn — no matter how others try to persuade him, he refuses to change his decision.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 顽梗不化
- Pinyin: wán gěng bù huà
- Literal Translation: obstinate, rigid, not, change
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4