📖 Meaning
Describes a situation so precarious it is like a thread about to snap — on the verge of collapse or extinction. It can refer to a critical political or military situation, or to the decline of a family line with few descendants remaining. The idiom conveys extreme fragility and imminent danger of being cut off entirely.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom first appears in the "Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals" (《公羊传》), under the fourth year of Duke Xi's reign. It describes how the southern Yi and northern Di barbarian tribes were simultaneously attacking the central Chinese states, leaving the Zhou civilization hanging by a thread — 'as if a single strand that could snap at any moment.' The phrase was later adopted by Ban Gu in the "Book of Han" (《汉书》) to describe the dwindling descendants of meritorious officials from the early Han dynasty, whose family lines were barely surviving.
💡 Example Usage
战乱之后，这个家族人丁稀少，不绝如线。
After the war, the family had so few members left that its lineage hung by a thread.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 不绝如线
- Pinyin: bù jué rú xiàn
- Literal Translation: not, severed, like, thread
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4