一清如水

yìqīngrúshuǐ
idiom

Meanings

  1. 1 as clear as water (idiom)
  2. 2 (of officials) honest and incorruptible
  3. 3 spotlessly clean

Examples

Tā zuò guān duōnián, yìqīngrúshuǐ.
He served as an official for many years, honest as the day is long.
Zhàngmù yìqīngrúshuǐ, méiyǒu rènhé yídiǎn.
The accounts are perfectly clean — no irregularities anywhere.

Tips

history
Recorded in Ming-era 's 《西湖》, where it praises a yamen incorruptible enough to be appointed for moral example. The water imagery — visible to the bottom — is a stock metaphor for an official whose books and conduct can be inspected without finding silt.
memory
'completely clear' + 'like water' — water in pre-industrial Chinese poetry is the cleanliness benchmark, hence the comparison.

Stroke Order

qīng
shuǐ