乘人之危

Pronunciation: chéng rén zhī wēi Literal meaning: Ride person's danger

Origin & Usage

To ride (乘) on another person's (人之) danger (危). 乘 is the verb for mounting a horse or a chariot, so the image is of using someone's difficulty as the thing you stand on to get higher. The History of the Later Han condemns it in exactly those terms. Chinese moral vocabulary treats this as distinctly worse than ordinary competition, and the phrase is a standard accusation in commerce — the buyer who appears when a seller is desperate, and names a price accordingly.

Examples

English: "The competitor offered an unfairly low buyout price during the company's financial crisis"

Chinese: 竞争对手在公司财务危机期间提出了不公平的低价收购要约