异口同声
- Literal
- different mouths, same voice
- Figurative
- For everyone to say the same thing with one voice; the stress is on unanimous words, not the unplanned coincidence of 不约而同.
Where does 异口同声 come from?
It does not come from a specific anecdote; the image explains itself. 异 means "different" and 同 "the same": the mouths are many and distinct, but the voice that comes out of them is one. The phrase already appears in the 《宋书》, the official history of the Liu Song dynasty (one of the Southern Dynasties), compiled by Shen Yue, to say that everyone was saying the same thing. It is very common today, often with 地 before the verb (异口同声地说, 异口同声地回答); unlike 不约而同, which stresses coinciding without prior agreement, it is specifically about everyone saying the same thing at once.
Source (出处): 《宋书·庾炳之传》
How is 异口同声 used? Two examples
- 妈妈问晚饭想吃什么，两个孩子异口同声地说要吃饺子。
Mom asked what they wanted for dinner, and both kids said in unison that they wanted dumplings.
- 对新的考勤规定，员工们异口同声地表示反对。
Faced with the new attendance rules, the staff spoke with one voice against them.
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