📖 Meaning
To sever something in two with a single stroke of the blade. Metaphorically, it describes making a decisive and complete break in a relationship or cutting off a matter resolutely, leaving no possibility of reconciliation or return.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom first appears in the Song dynasty work 'The Five Lamps Meeting at the Source' (《五灯会元》), compiled by the monk Shi Puji, where it is used in a Chan (Zen) Buddhist context to describe a clean, decisive cut. The Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi later employed it in 'Classified Conversations of Master Zhu' (《朱子语类》), explaining that true self-discipline requires cutting off desire at its very root, as cleanly as a single knife stroke. The phrase draws on the vivid image of a blade cleaving an object completely in two with one decisive motion, leaving no partial connection behind.
💡 Example Usage
她终于下定决心和他一刀两断，从此再无瓜葛。
She finally resolved to make a clean break with him, severing all ties from that point on.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 一刀两断
- Pinyin: yī dāo liǎng duàn
- Literal Translation: one, knife, two, sever
- Category: Determination
- Characters: 4