📖 Meaning
To have one's ambitions realized and feel thoroughly satisfied. It describes a state where someone has achieved what they set out to do and is basking in complacent self-satisfaction. The phrase often carries a hint of excessive pride or smugness.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase appears in Ming dynasty author Ling Mengchu's 'Slapping the Table in Amazement' (初刻拍案惊奇), Volume 38. In the story, a character named Liu, having gained independence and freedom, becomes smug and self-satisfied, begins rearranging affairs to show off his own family while pushing his father-in-law and mother-in-law aside, as if the household were no longer the Liu family's. The idiom captures the conceited complacency that comes after achieving one's desires.
💡 Example Usage
他年纪轻轻就当上了总经理，不免志得意满，待人接物都透着一股傲气。
Becoming general manager at a young age, he grew smug and self-satisfied, exuding an air of arrogance in all his dealings.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 志得意满
- Pinyin: zhì dé yì mǎn
- Literal Translation: ambition, achieved, desire, fulfilled
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4