📖 Meaning
Prolonged anxiety and worry eventually lead to physical illness. It describes how excessive emotional distress over a long period can harm one's health. The idiom warns that chronic sorrow takes a real toll on the body.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from 'Neng Gai Zhai Man Lu' by Wu Zeng of the Song Dynasty. It records a memorial by Li Fengji and Pei Du to Emperor Muzong of Tang. A man named Cui Fa had dragged and beaten a palace eunuch, a serious offense, but his elderly mother of eighty had fallen gravely ill from worry since his imprisonment. The ministers argued that since the emperor governed with filial piety, he should show compassion and pardon Cui Fa for his mother's sake.
💡 Example Usage
他自儿子入狱后终日寝食难安，最终积忧成疾，卧床不起。
After his son was imprisoned, he could neither eat nor sleep peacefully day and night, and eventually fell ill from accumulated worry, becoming bedridden.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 积忧成疾
- Pinyin: jī yōu chéng jí
- Literal Translation: accumulate, worry, become, illness
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4