指鹿作马 — Chinese idiom
指鹿作马
zhǐ lù zuò mǎ
Traditional: 指鹿作馬
Meaning
- to take a deer and call it a horse ; deliberate inversion of the truth
Character by character
- 指zhǐfinger, toe; to point, to indicate
- 鹿lùdeer; surname
- 作zuòto make; to write, to compose; to act, to perform
- 马mǎhorse; surname
Idioms sharing a character
- 一弹指顷 yī tán zhǐ qǐng
- 了如指掌 liǎo rú zhǐ zhǎng
- 令人发指 lìng rén fà zhǐ
- 如臂使指 rú bì shǐ zhǐ
- 屈指可数 qū zhǐ kě shǔ
- 弹指之间 tán zhǐ zhī jiān
- 指手画脚 zhǐ shǒu huà jiǎo
- 指日可待 zhǐ rì kě dài
- 指桑骂槐 zhǐ sāng mà huái
- 指腹为婚 zhǐ fù wéi hūn
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.