📖 Meaning
In old times of famine, a large family would split up and send some members away to flee starvation and beg or seek work elsewhere, thereby lightening the household's burden and keeping the rest alive. It refers to the desperate measure of breaking up a household so that fewer mouths have to be fed at home.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom appears in the wedge (楔子) of the Yuan-dynasty anonymous play Contract Text (《合同文字》). When the six crops fail and famine strikes, an official order directs the family to 'divide the household and reduce the mouths.' In the scene, the protagonist leaves his younger brother to guard the ancestral estate while he and his wife travel to other regions to follow the ripe harvest and beg for a living, illustrating how starving families were forced to scatter in order to survive.
💡 Example Usage
那年大旱庄稼绝收，村里许多人家只好分房减口，送部分子弟外出逃荒。
That year the drought ruined all the crops, and many families in the village had to split up and reduce their mouths, sending some of their sons out to flee the famine.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 分房减口
- Pinyin: fēn fáng jiǎn kǒu
- Literal Translation: divide, household, reduce, mouths
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4