逆耳之言 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• speech that grates on the ear ; bitter truths
• home truths (that one does not want to hear)

Character by character

• 逆nìto disobey, to rebel; traitor, rebel
• 耳ěrear; to hear, to hear of; handle
• 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
• 言yánwords, speech; to speak, to say

Idioms sharing a character

• 倒行逆施 dào xíng nì shī
• 忠言逆耳 zhōng yán nì ěr
• 逆来顺受 nì lái shùn shòu
• 逆水行舟 nì shuǐ xíng zhōu
• 逆行倒施 nì xíng dào shī
• 违天逆理 wéi tiān nì lǐ
• 不堪入耳 bù kān rù ěr
• 俯首帖耳 fǔ shǒu tiē ěr
• 充耳不闻 chōng ěr bù wén
• 如雷贯耳 rú léi guàn ěr

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