📖 Meaning
To live in seclusion and cut off all contact with the mundane world. It describes someone who withdraws from society to escape worldly affairs and social conventions. The idiom carries a sense of deliberately renouncing fame and worldly entanglements.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the Ming dynasty literary critic Wang Shizhen's work 'Yiyuan Zhiyan' (艺苑卮言), in its first volume. Writing about the power of poetry, he says that poetry can move one to feel like a forsaken orphan or an abandoned minister, and to feel the sorrow of those who flee the world and sever ties with the mundane — remaining unstained by filth, like a cicada shedding its shell to leave the dirt behind. From this passage the idiom '遁世绝俗' was formed, meaning to withdraw from the world and break off contact with worldly matters.
💡 Example Usage
他选择遁世绝俗，独自隐居在远离人烟的深山。
He chose to flee the world and sever all ties with the mundane, living alone in seclusion deep in the remote mountains.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 遁世绝俗
- Pinyin: dùn shì jué sú
- Literal Translation: flee, world, sever, mundane
- Category: Lifestyle
- Characters: 4