📖 Meaning
This idiom describes eating in a ravenous and hurried manner, devouring food with great speed and intensity. It paints a vivid picture of someone eating as fiercely as a wolf or tiger pouncing on its prey.
📜 Origin Story
This phrase is a variant of the more common expression 狼吞虎咽, both using the imagery of wolves and tigers to depict gluttonous, hasty eating. Such animal-based metaphors for eating habits have appeared in Chinese vernacular literature since the Ming and Qing dynasties. No single classical source is attributed as its definitive origin.
💡 Example Usage
他饿了一整天，回到家便狼吞虎餐地吃起了饭菜。
Having gone hungry all day, he came home and wolfed down his food ravenously.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 狼吞虎餐
- Pinyin: láng tūn hǔ cān
- Literal Translation: wolf, swallow, tiger, eat
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4