📖 Meaning
A metaphor describing how a person who has done wrong always feels uneasy and fearful in their heart. Just as a thief lacks courage due to a guilty conscience, wrongdoers live in constant anxiety that their misdeeds will be discovered.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the Ming Dynasty collection "Xingshi Hengyan" (Stories to Awaken the World), Volume 16, by Feng Menglong. The old saying goes that a thief's heart is never at peace. In the story, a character named Zhao Ang, burdened by past misdeeds on his conscience, becomes even more terrified than Wang Yuanwai when confronted. The idiom was later famously employed by Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty novel "Dream of the Red Chamber" (Chapter 71), where a character's guilty conscience leads them to mistake casual teasing as evidence that their secrets have been exposed.
💡 Example Usage
他一听这话，立刻变了脸色，真是贼人胆虚。
Upon hearing those words, his face immediately changed color—truly a guilty conscience.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 贼人胆虚
- Pinyin: zéi rén dǎn xū
- Literal Translation: thief, person, courage, empty
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4