📖 Meaning
Describes being utterly terrified, with one's soul flying away and courage shattered. It is equivalent to the idiom 魂飞魄散 (soul flying, spirit scattered) and is used to depict extreme fear or panic.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase 魂飞胆破 has no single authoritative classical source recorded. It combines two long-standing Chinese metaphors for terror: 魂飞 (the soul flying out of the body) and 胆破 (the gallbladder bursting, since 胆 was associated with courage). Similar expressions such as 魂飞魄散 appear in Tang and Song dynasty literature. This exact combination circulated in later vernacular fiction and storytelling, particularly in Ming and Qing novels, as a vivid intensifier for fright. No specific dynasty or historical figure is credited with its coinage.
💡 Example Usage
深夜里突然响起敲门声，吓得她魂飞胆破，浑身发抖。
A sudden knock on the door in the dead of night frightened her so badly that her soul fled and her courage shattered, leaving her trembling all over.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 魂飞胆破
- Pinyin: hún fēi dǎn pò
- Literal Translation: soul flies, gall breaks
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4