📖 Meaning
Literally meaning to eat wine dregs and drink thin wine, seeking intoxication. It metaphorically refers to compromising one's principles to conform to worldly conventions, or drifting along with the current of the times. It can also describe writing so beautiful that it intoxicates the reader.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the dialogue between the exiled poet Qu Yuan and a fisherman, recorded in the Chu Ci (Songs of Chu), a work of the Warring States period. The fisherman advises the disillusioned Qu Yuan that a sage should not be rigidly bound by circumstances but should adapt to the times. He asks: when everyone is drunk, why not eat the dregs and drink the thin wine along with them? Qu Yuan refuses, choosing to remain pure rather than compromise. The phrase later became a metaphor for abandoning one's ideals to drift with the worldly tide.
💡 Example Usage
他不愿餵糟啜漓，宁可辞官归隐也不与世俗同流合污。
Unwilling to eat the dregs and drink the thin wine, he chose to resign and live in seclusion rather than go along with the corrupt ways of the world.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 餵糟啜漓
- Pinyin: bǔ zāo chuò lí
- Literal Translation: eat dregs, sip thin wine
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4