📖 Meaning
To worry anxiously and think hard about a problem. It describes a state of deep concern coupled with intense mental effort to find a solution. The idiom conveys both emotional distress and painstaking deliberation.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom does not trace to a single classical text but is a compound of common classical Chinese morphemes expressing anxious thought. The characters 焦 (burnt, anxious), 思 (think), 苦 (bitter, painstaking), and 虑 (ponder) each carry long-standing literary usage dating back to pre-Qin texts. Over time they combined into a four-character expression used in vernacular and literary Chinese to depict someone racking their brain under stress. No specific dynastic anecdote or named historical figure is associated with its coinage.
💡 Example Usage
他为了解决公司的财务危机，整夜焦思苦虑，天亮时终于想出了对策。
To solve the company's financial crisis, he spent the whole night thinking anxiously and hard, finally coming up with a plan by daybreak.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 焦思苦虑
- Pinyin: jiāo sī kǔ lǜ
- Literal Translation: anxious, think, bitter, ponder
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4