不屈不挠

Pronunciation: bù qū bù náo Literal meaning: Neither bend nor yield

Origin & Usage

Neither (不) bending (屈) nor (不) yielding (挠). 屈 is to bend something that ought to be straight and 挠 is to give way under a load, so the two halves cover pressure applied from outside and pressure that comes from the weight itself. Doubling the negation is the whole rhetorical move: nothing is asserted positively, and the picture is built entirely out of what does not happen. People under sustained coercion rather than ordinary persistence, and it belongs to citations, memorials and the language written about the dead.

Examples

English: "Her indomitable spirit helped her overcome every obstacle."

Chinese: 她不屈不挠的精神帮助她克服了每一个障碍。