📖 Meaning
Originally meant to regret one's own mistakes and correct them oneself. In modern usage, it refers only to remorseful self-reproach over one's own errors, without the sense of actually correcting them. The second character 艾 originally meant to cut grass, metaphorically to amend one's faults.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom comes from Mencius, Chapter Wan Zhang I (《孟子·万章上》). It concerns Tai Jia (太甲), an early king of the Shang Dynasty who governed poorly and was exiled for three years by his minister Yi Yin (伊尹). During exile Tai Jia deeply repented, reproached himself, and mended his ways. Mencius wrote '太甲悔过，自怨自艾' — 'Tai Jia repented, blaming and correcting himself.' Over the centuries the meaning narrowed, keeping the self-reproach but dropping the self-correction.
💡 Example Usage
事情搞砸后，她一个人躲在房间里自怨自艾。
After things went wrong, she hid alone in her room, bitterly reproaching herself.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 自怨自艾
- Pinyin: zì yuàn zì yì
- Literal Translation: self, resent, self, cut grass
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4