📖 Meaning
Describes a person growing increasingly emaciated due to old age and illness. The image evokes a leather belt whose buckle must be moved to a tighter hole as the wearer's waist shrinks from wasting away. It conveys a gradual, visible decline in health and physical condition.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the 'Biography of Shen Yue' in the History of the Southern Dynasties (南史·沈约传). Shen Yue (441–513) was a prominent scholar and official of the Southern Liang Dynasty, renowned for his literary achievements. In his later years he suffered from chronic illness, and he described himself as old and sickly, recounting that over the course of a hundred days he constantly had to shift the buckle of his leather belt to a tighter hole as his body wasted away. This vivid image of a loosening belt became a lasting metaphor for progressive emaciation.
💡 Example Usage
他久病缠身，革带移孔，已不复当年的健壮体魄。
Ravaged by chronic illness, he grew so gaunt that his belt had to be tightened hole by hole, no longer the robust figure he once was.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 革带移孔
- Pinyin: gé dài yí kǒng
- Literal Translation: leather belt, shift, hole
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4