📖 Meaning
To commit all kinds of wrongdoing and evil deeds. It describes someone who habitually engages in bad or harmful behavior. The idiom is equivalent to 为非作歹.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant of the more common phrase 为非作歹, which has appeared in vernacular Chinese literature for centuries. It combines 为非 (doing wrong) with 作恶 (doing evil) to emphasize the breadth of misdeeds. No single classical text is definitively cited as its origin. The phrase appears in various Ming and Qing dynasty novels and storytellers' scripts as a moral condemnation of villains.
💡 Example Usage
这伙恶霸在乡里为非作恶，百姓苦不堪言。
This gang of local tyrants committed every kind of evil in the countryside, making the common people's lives unbearable.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 为非作恶
- Pinyin: wéi fēi zuò è
- Literal Translation: do, wrong, do, evil
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4