📖 Meaning
Describes a person who is weak and feeble because of illness, appearing unsteady and listing about as they move. The reduplicated AABB structure intensifies the sense of a lingering, chronic state of poor health. It suggests someone so debilitated that even standing or walking seems a struggle.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from the 1950 play Dragon Beard Ditch (《龙须沟》) by Lao She, one of modern China's most celebrated novelists and playwrights. In Act One, a character urges someone to let the elderly master rest, saying that he is '病病歪歪' (sickly and weak). The play depicts the hardships of poor Beijing residents living beside a filthy drainage ditch before and after the 1949 liberation. Lao She uses the AABB reduplication to paint a vivid picture of chronic illness and frailty in everyday speech.
💡 Example Usage
他病病歪歪的，连走几步路都喘得厉害。
He was so sickly and weak that he was out of breath after walking just a few steps.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 病病歪歪
- Pinyin: bìng bìng wāi wāi
- Literal Translation: sick, sick, crooked, crooked
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4