📖 Meaning
To take and seize things at will from someone, as if one has the right to arbitrarily plunder their wealth or resources. It describes a relationship of stark power imbalance where the stronger party appropriates whatever it wants without resistance.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase appears in the modern essay 'Fist Coast' (拳头海岸) by the contemporary writer Qin Mu (秦牧). Qin Mu describes coastal regions that were once regarded as places where wealth could be freely taken and seized at will, yet one by one these coasts 'raised their fists' in defiance, transforming into 'fist coasts.' The idiom thus conveys the notion of arbitrary appropriation and the eventual resistance it provokes.
💡 Example Usage
那些殖民者曾以为可以对这些土地予取予夺，却没想到激起了人民的反抗。
The colonizers once thought they could take and seize these lands at will, but instead they provoked the people's resistance.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 予取予夺
- Pinyin: yú qǔ yú duó
- Literal Translation: from me take, from me seize
- Category: Power
- Characters: 4