📖 Meaning
To mend cracks and plug leaks. Metaphorically, to remedy the defects and shortcomings of a system, plan, or institution. It conveys the act of patching up gaps to make something more complete and sound.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase originates from the Tang dynasty scholar Han Yu's essay 'Jin Xue Jie' (On the Advancement of Learning), written around the early 9th century. In this essay, Han Yu uses the metaphor of mending cracks and stopping leaks to describe the painstaking work of scholars who preserve and refine classical learning by filling in gaps and correcting errors in transmitted texts. Han Yu, one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song, championed the Classical Prose Movement and sought to restore the purity of ancient writings. The idiom thus originally referred to the scholarly labor of emending and supplementing flawed or incomplete texts, but later broadened to mean remedying any kind of deficiency.
💡 Example Usage
这套方案虽已出台，仍需补苴罅漏，方能切实可行。
Although this plan has been issued, its defects must still be mended before it can be truly practicable.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 补苴罅漏
- Pinyin: bǔ jū xià lòu
- Literal Translation: mend, pad with straw, crack, leak
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4