颠 diān
- Strokes
- 16
- Radical
- 页 — page, sheet, leaf
- How it's built
- Phono-semantic — one part hints at the meaning, another at the sound
颠倒黑白
diāndǎohēibái
to invert right and wrong; to distort the truth
Characters in this word
倒 dǎo
- Strokes
- 10
- Radical
- 亻 — man, person
- Made of
- 亻 man, person 到 to go to, to arrive
- How it's built
- Phono-semantic — one part hints at the meaning, another at the sound
黑 hēi
- Strokes
- 12
- Radical
- 黑 — black
- How it's built
- Ideograph — the meaning is built from its parts
白 bái
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 白 — white
- How it's built
- Ideograph — the meaning is built from its parts
Example phrases
- 他明明做错了，却颠倒黑白，说是同学的错。 Tā míngmíng zuò cuò le, què diāndǎo hēibái, shuō shì tóngxué de cuò. He clearly did it wrong, yet he twisted the truth and said it was his classmate's fault.
- 不要颠倒黑白，大家都看到事情是怎么发生的。 Bú yào diāndǎo hēibái, dàjiā dōu kàndào shìqing shì zěnme fāshēng de. Don't twist the facts; everyone saw how it happened.
- 有人在网上颠倒黑白，把假话说得像真的一样。 Yǒu rén zài wǎngshàng diāndǎo hēibái, bǎ jiǎhuà shuō de xiàng zhēnde yíyàng. Some people online distort the truth and make lies sound like the real thing.
Related words
- 颠簸 diānbǒ to jolt; to bump along
- 颠倒 diāndǎo to reverse; to invert; to confuse
- 颠覆 diānfù to overturn; to subvert; to upend
- 倒 dǎo to fall over
- 倒 dào to pour
- 倒闭 dǎobì to go bankrupt
- 倒车 dǎochē to transfer vehicles
- 倒车 dàochē to reverse a car
- 倒是 dàoshì actually; on the other hand
- 摔倒 shuāidǎo to fall down
- 打倒 dǎdǎo to knock down; to overthrow
- 倒霉 dǎoméi unlucky; unfortunate