Idiom
Chinese compliment
Meaning
A pretense of deference; a veiled or subtle insult.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“That was a Chinese compliment, not a real one.”
“He praised my work in a way that felt like a Chinese compliment, highlighting my mistakes while pretending to be helpful.”
“The critic offered a sharp Chinese compliment, masking his disdain for the author's prose behind a thin veil of polite admiration.”
Examples
simple
“That was a Chinese compliment, not a real one.”
contextual
“He praised my work in a way that felt like a Chinese compliment, highlighting my mistakes while pretending to be helpful.”
complex
“The critic offered a sharp Chinese compliment, masking his disdain for the author's prose behind a thin veil of polite admiration.”
Key words
Related idioms
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