名正言顺 / 名正言順

míng​zhèng​yán​shùn

perfectly justified

(idiom) right and proper; to be perfectly legitimate or justified because one has the proper status or reasoning; describes something done in a way that is logically or morally sound. Derived from a passage in the [[论语|論語|lun2 yu3]] (Analects) suggesting that if names are not correct, then language will not be in accord with the truth of things

名 (literal) → 名 · míng · name 正 (literal) → 正 · zhèng · correct 言 (literal) → 言 · yán · speech 顺 (literal) → 顺/順 · shùn · to suit

Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

created sense May 20, 2026, 07:57 PM