📖 Meaning
When the nest is destroyed, the eggs inside are inevitably shattered. It is a metaphor for how calamity befalling the head of a family or a powerful figure inevitably drags down and harms their dependents, especially children.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom comes from the 'Biography of Kong Rong' in the Book of Later Han. When the scholar Kong Rong was about to be arrested and executed by the warlord Cao Cao, he pleaded that his two young children be spared. His eight-year-old son calmly replied, 'How can eggs remain unbroken when the nest has been overturned?' Both children were ultimately executed alongside their father.
💡 Example Usage
父亲入狱后，全家巢毁卵破，无一幸免。
After the father was imprisoned, the entire family suffered the fate of a shattered nest and broken eggs, with none spared.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 巢毁卵破
- Pinyin: cháo huǐ luǎn pò
- Literal Translation: nest, destroyed, eggs, broken
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4