Rectification of Idiom Definitions in Modern Chinese Dictionaries

Chinese idioms are an important component of modern Chinese vocabulary and an indispensable and emphasized part of modern Chinese dictionaries. As most idioms originated from ancient times, the meanings of some morphemes within them often rely on archaic or semantic borrowing, which pose challenges for contemporary readers to comprehend them correctly. This article takes the latest editions of The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary and A Standard Dictionary of Modern Chinese as examples, attempting to examine and analyze the misinterpretations of certain idiom entries in these exemplary language dictionaries. As a result, references are provided for dictionary compilers in future.