untidy appearance with prisoner 's unkempt hair and unwashed face

untidy appearance with prisoner 's unkempt hair and unwashed face

As a Chinese idiom, the Pinyin is Qi ú sh à UG à UMI à n, which means that a prisoner in a prison has not combed his hair and washed his face for a long time. It describes that he does not pay attention to the cleanliness and decoration of his personal appearance. It comes from the first biography of Wang Mang in the history of Han Dynasty.

The origin of Idioms

Ban Gu of the Eastern Han Dynasty wrote in the book of Han, biography of Wang Mang: "mang attends diseases, tastes medicine personally, and his head and face are in disorder."

Idiom usage

It has a derogatory meaning. Example: in Qing Dynasty, he bange's the rich man in Xin'an: "the woman leads two weapons in green clothes to the prison, and the prisoner's head is dirty."