CHINESE DICTIONARY ENTRY

本来面目

běnláimiànmù

(idiom) true colors; true features; original appearance

IN A VIDEO本来面目

See this word with its surrounding sentence, pinyin, translation, and timestamp.

DEFINITIONS & USAGE

Meaning and common use

(idiom) true colors; true features; original appearance

REAL CORPUS EXAMPLES

How 本来面目 actually appears in real sentences.

These sentences are copied from the Tatoeba corpus, so they are real usage rather than generated text. 本来面目 appears in 2 of the 89,190 sentences we searched. Sentences without a published English translation are shown in Chinese only.

「父母未生我之前，什麽是我本来面目？」「万法归一，一归何处？」「fù mǔ wèi shēng wǒ zhī qián， shén mó shì wǒ běn lái miàn mù？」「wàn fǎ guī yī， yī guī hé chù？」

No published English translation for this sentence.

他要强使一种土地滋生另一种土地上的东西，强使一种树木结出另一种树木的果实；他将气候、风雨、季节搞得混乱不清；他残害他的狗、他的马和他的奴仆；他扰乱一切，毁伤一切东西的本来面目；他喜爱丑陋和奇形怪状的东西；他不愿意事物天然的那个样子，甚至对人也是如此，必须把人象练马场的马那样加以训练；必须把人象花园中的树木那样，照他喜爱的样子弄得歪歪扭扭。tā yào qiáng shǐ yī zhǒng tǔ dì zī shēng lìng yī zhǒng tǔ dì shàng de dōng xī， qiáng shǐ yī zhǒng shù mù jié chū lìng yī zhǒng shù mù de guǒ shí； tā jiāng qì hòu、 fēng yǔ、 jì jié gǎo dé hùn luàn bù qīng； tā cán hài tā de gǒu、 tā de mǎ hé tā de nú pú； tā rǎo luàn yī qiè， huǐ shāng yī qiè dōng xī de běn lái miàn mù； tā xǐ ài chǒu lòu hé qí xíng guài zhuàng de dōng xī； tā bù yuàn yì shì wù tiān rán de nà ge yàng zi， shèn zhì duì rén yě shì rú cǐ， bì xū bǎ rén xiàng liàn mǎ chǎng de mǎ nà yàng jiā yǐ xùn liàn； bì xū bǎ rén xiàng huā yuán zhōng de shù mù nà yàng， zhào tā xǐ ài de yàng zi nòng dé wāi wāi niǔ niǔ。

No published English translation for this sentence.

COMMON COLLOCATIONS

Words that keep company with 本来面目.

Counted from the same corpus: the word that most often comes directly before, and directly after, 本来面目.

Directly before

的本来面目1
我本来面目1

Directly after

No repeated neighbour in the corpus.

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

Where this entry comes from

The HSK level, part of speech, and pronunciation come from the HSK 3.1 vocabulary syllabus. The English definitions come from CC-CEDICT. Corpus sentences, collocations, and the frequency figure come from the Tatoeba Chinese sentence export and are counted rather than written, so nothing on this page is invented. Usage notes and the hand-written examples that appear higher up exist only for a handful of entries.

Definitions from CC-CEDICT, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Vocabulary levels and parts of speech from the HSK 3.1 syllabus. This compiled dictionary is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

COMMON QUESTIONS

About 本来面目

What does 本来面目 mean in Chinese?

本来面目 (běnláimiànmù) means (idiom) true colors; true features; original appearance.

How do you pronounce 本来面目?

本来面目 is pronounced běnláimiànmù.

Is 本来面目 an HSK word?

本来面目 is on the list of the HSK 3.1 vocabulary syllabus.

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