优胜劣汰

Pronunciation: yōu shèng liè tài Literal meaning: Superior wins inferior eliminated

Origin & Usage

The superior (优) prevail (胜), the inferior (劣) are washed out (汰). This is not a classical idiom: it entered Chinese in the late Qing through Yan Fu's translation of Huxley, in the wave of thinking about survival and struggle that reached China at the moment it was losing wars to industrial powers. That history is why the phrase carries such force in Chinese and why it is applied so readily to nations and firms. 汰 is the word for panning or rinsing away, so the elimination is a sorting rather than a defeat.

Examples

English: "The competitive market naturally forced inefficient companies into bankruptcy"

Chinese: 竞争激烈的市场自然地迫使低效率的公司破产