📖 Meaning
To urgently rescue those trapped in desperate or life-threatening situations. It vividly describes rushing to the aid of people in acute distress, much like pulling someone from a blaze or saving a drowning person.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant of the older expression 救焚拯溺 (jiù fén zhěng nì), which appears in classical Chinese texts such as the Book of the Later Han (《后汉书》) and the Old Book of Tang (《旧唐书》), where it is used to describe officials who relieve the people's suffering with the same urgency as extinguishing a fire or saving someone from drowning. The variant 救火拯溺 substitutes the more colloquial 火 (fire) for the literary 焚 (to burn), making the imagery more direct and accessible. Though no single canonical source is recorded for this specific variant, it has been used throughout Chinese literary tradition to convey the virtue of swift, selfless intervention in a crisis.
💡 Example Usage
灾难面前，各方力量救火拯溺，昼夜不停。
In the face of disaster, forces from all sides rushed to rescue and save lives, working day and night without rest.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 救火拯溺
- Pinyin: jiù huǒ zhěng nì
- Literal Translation: rescue fire, save drowning
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4