Chinese idiom · 成语
黯然失色
Meaning
To pale in comparison; to lose luster beside something greater.
Character by character
Origin and story
Literary expressionThe expression draws on the language of darkening and losing color or brilliance. A concrete literary attestation occurs in Mao Xiang’s Yingmei An Yiyu (影梅庵憶語), where he says that celebrated earlier works such as Huizhen and Changhen are made to lose their luster by comparison.
Some dictionaries connect the vocabulary to Jiang Yan’s Bie Fu (別賦), but its famous opening contains 黯然销魂, a different expression. It is therefore safer to distinguish that related vocabulary from the exact four-character phrase. No single Song-dynasty origin story has been established here. Modern use commonly describes something admirable that looks less impressive beside a stronger example.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
新展厅一开放，旁边的旧展厅就显得黯然失色。
Once the new exhibition hall opened, the old one beside it looked pale by comparison.
Usually involves being overshadowed; it need not mean the lesser thing has no value.