借刀杀人 — Chinese idiom
借刀杀人
jiè dāo shā rén
Traditional: 借刀殺人
Meaning
- to lend sb a knife to kill sb
- to get sb else to do one's dirty work
- to attack using the strength of another
Character by character
- 借jièto borrow; to lend; excuse, pretext
- 刀dāoknife; old coin; measure
- 杀shāto kill, to murder, to slaughter; to hurt
- 人rénman, person; people
Idioms sharing a character
- 借古讽今 jiè gǔ fěng jīn
- 借尸还魂 jiè shī huán hún
- 借花献佛 jiè huā xiàn Fó
- 借酒浇愁 jiè jiǔ jiāo chóu
- 背城借一 bèi chéng jiè yī
- 一刀两断 yī dāo liǎng duàn
- 两肋插刀 liǎng lèi chā dāo
- 两面三刀 liǎng miàn sān dāo
- 刀光剑影 dāo guāng jiàn yǐng
- 刀山火海 dāo shān huǒ hǎi
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.