📖 Meaning
The favorable situation has been lost and the tide of events has turned irrevocably against one. It describes a point where success or recovery is no longer possible and decline cannot be reversed by human effort.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from the Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi's work Zhuzi Jianlei (Volume 51), where he records the Cheng brothers' discussion of the mandate of heaven: 'When the mandate of heaven is changed, is it not because the overall trend is already gone?' The idea is that a dynasty's mandate ends once the broader current of events has turned against it, independent of any single ruler's actions. It later became a staple of historical and classical fiction, most famously in the Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods by Xu Zhonglin, where King Zhou perceives that the situation is beyond any human power to salvage.
💡 Example Usage
敌军主帅见大势已去，只得下令弃城而逃。
Seeing that the tide of battle had turned irrevocably against them, the enemy commander had no choice but to order his troops to abandon the city and flee.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 大势已去
- Pinyin: dà shì yǐ qù
- Literal Translation: overall trend, already, gone
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4