皎皎者易污

jiǎo​jiǎo​zhě​yì​wū

virtue is easily sullied

The pure are easily stained; often used to mean that a person of high integrity is particularly vulnerable to being slandered or corrupted.

皎皎 (reduplication) → 皎 · jiǎo · bright and white 者 (bound) → 者 · zhě · -er 易 (literal) → 易 · yì · easy 污 (literal) → 污 · wū · dirty

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

created sense May 20, 2026, 07:58 PM