📖 Meaning
Wei Jie was looked to death. A metaphor for a person so admired and worshipped by the public that the attention itself becomes overwhelming or even destructive. It describes someone who is the object of intense mass admiration.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from the 'Biography of Wei Jie' in the Book of Jin. Wei Jie (style name Shubao) was a scholar of the Jin dynasty renowned for his extraordinary appearance and bearing. When he traveled to the capital, the people there, having long heard of his beauty, crowded around to see him until the onlookers formed a wall. Wei Jie was already of frail health, and the exhaustion from being constantly watched worsened his illness; he died in the sixth year of Yongjia at just twenty-seven. People of the time said Wei Jie had been 'looked to death.'
💡 Example Usage
这位明星每到一处都被粉丝围观，颇有看杀卫玠之忧。
Wherever this star goes, he is mobbed by fans, raising fears that he might be loved to death like Wei Jie.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 看杀卫玠
- Pinyin: kàn shā wèi jiè
- Literal Translation: watch, kill, Wei Jie
- Category: Status
- Characters: 4