报本反始 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• ensure that you pay debts of gratitude

Character by character

• 报bàoto announce, to report; newspaper; payback, reveng
• 本běnroot, origin, source; basis
• 反fǎnreverse, opposite; contrary, anti-
• 始shǐto begin, to start; beginning

Idioms sharing a character

• 以德报怨 yǐ dé bào yuàn
• 以身报国 yǐ shēn bào guó
• 善有善报 shàn yǒu shàn bào
• 报仇雪耻 bào chóu xuě chǐ
• 报仇雪恨 bào chóu xuě hèn
• 报应不爽 bào yìng bù shuǎng
• 官报私仇 guān bào sī chóu
• 恩将仇报 ēn jiāng chóu bào
• 恶有恶报 è yǒu è bào
• 感恩图报 gǎn ēn tú bào

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.