tú​qióng​bǐ​xiàn

the plot is revealed

图穷匕见 圖窮匕見 tú​qióng​bǐ​xiàn
the plot is revealed
Literally "when the map is unrolled, the dagger is revealed"; a scheme is finally exposed or someone's malicious intent becomes apparent. This idiom refers to the attempted assassination of the first Qin emperor by 荆轲 jīng​kē, who hid a knife inside a map scroll.

Frequency

Written text
0.030 per million

Cross-References

Variant of

Sources

Frequency data
BCC Corpus (BLCU)