Chinese idiom · 成语
入室操戈
Meaning
To turn someone's own weapons against them; to refute an opponent using their own arguments or evidence.
Character by character
Origin and story
Scholarly anecdoteThe Hou Hanshu (後漢書), volume 35, records a dispute between the scholars He Xiu and Zheng Xuan over interpretations of the Spring and Autumn Annals. He Xiu defends the Gongyang tradition and criticizes the Zuo and Guliang traditions in three works. Zheng Xuan answers those works directly, even framing his replies around He Xiu’s chosen images of defenses and illnesses.
On reading the replies, He Xiu exclaims that Zheng has entered his room and taken up his own spear to attack him. The later idiom substitutes 戈, a dagger-axe, for the passage’s 矛. It describes refuting an opponent with that opponent’s own arguments or materials, not simply fighting within one’s own group.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
她引用对方报告里的数据反驳结论，这一招可谓入室操戈。
She used the other side's own report data to refute its conclusion—a case of turning someone's own weapons against them.
A literary description of using an opponent's own reasoning or evidence; distinguish 同室操戈, internal conflict.