📖 Meaning
To die while still harboring unfulfilled ambitions. It conveys the tragic sense of a person passing away before realizing their life's aspirations. The phrase is equivalent to the variant 赍志而殁.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom is a classical Chinese four-character expression built from ancient vocabulary: 赍 means to carry or harbor, 志 denotes aspiration or ambition, 以 functions as a connective meaning 'thereby' or 'and then', and 殁 means to die. As no single canonical source is recorded, the phrase circulated as a learned compound used in formal and literary contexts to lament a person who died with their goals unrealized. It commonly appears in biographical and commemorative writings to honor someone whose plans were cut short by death.
💡 Example Usage
一代名将赍志以殁，未能亲见山河收复之日。
The great general died with his ambitions unfulfilled, never living to see the day the lost territories were recovered.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 赍志以殁
- Pinyin: jī zhì yǐ mò
- Literal Translation: carry, ambition, thereby, die
- Category: Perseverance
- Characters: 4