📖 Meaning
This idiom describes enduring hunger and extreme frugality in food and daily expenses. It conveys the hardship of scrimping and saving to the point of near starvation.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase appears in Chen Dengke's novel '活人塘' (The Living Corpse Pit), where the Xue family's ancestors arrived at Xinhe Ji carrying only a shoulder pole of pots and bowls. They settled there and relied on their own two hands, enduring great hardship and scrimping on food to buy a few mu of farmland. The expression vividly portrays the extreme thrift and suffering endured by common people striving to acquire land.
💡 Example Usage
父母熬肠刮肚攒下的钱，全花在了孩子读书上。
The money the parents saved through years of extreme frugality was all spent on their children's education.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 熬肠刮肚
- Pinyin: áo cháng guā dù
- Literal Translation: endure intestines, scrape stomach
- Category: Lifestyle
- Characters: 4