一刀切

yīdāoqiē

idiom #68,940

Meanings

1 to cut everything with one stroke
2 to apply a blanket rule; one-size-fits-all
3 to treat different cases identically

Characters

Examples

政策不能一刀切，要具体情况具体分析。

Zhèngcè bù néng yīdāoqiē, yào jùtǐ qíngkuàng jùtǐ fēnxī.

Policy can't be one-size-fits-all — each situation has to be looked at on its own terms.

一刀切的管理只会打击积极性。

Yīdāoqiē de guǎnlǐ zhǐ huì dǎjī jījíxìng.

Blanket management will only kill initiative.

对学生的要求不该一刀切。

Duì xuéshēng de yāoqiú bù gāi yīdāoqiē.

Students shouldn't all be held to exactly the same standard.

Tips

register

Heavily used in modern Chinese policy and management discourse, almost always negatively: '不能一刀切' ('we can't apply a blanket rule'). The image is a single knife slicing everything to the same length regardless of what it is.

Stroke Order

一 yī

刀 dāo

切 qiē