借刀杀人 — Chinese idiom

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.