📖 Meaning
A metaphor for the beauty and elegance of literary expression. It describes writing that is ornate and richly adorned, like dragon and phoenix carvings. The idiom praises the refined craftsmanship of an author's rhetoric.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom draws on the imagery of dragons and phoenixes—two of the most auspicious creatures in Chinese culture—combined with the act of carving and the image of a beak, evoking elaborate ornamentation. It likely emerged from the tradition of classical literary criticism that valued ornate, carefully crafted prose. No single canonical source text is definitively associated with it, but it belongs to a family of expressions comparing fine writing to the artistry of carved jade or sculpted beasts. Over time it came to denote prose whose language is as dazzling as a carved dragon or phoenix.
💡 Example Usage
他的文章龙雕凤咀，辞藻华美，读来令人赞叹。
His prose is as ornate as carved dragons and phoenixes, with such elegant diction that one cannot help but marvel at it.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 龙雕凤咀
- Pinyin: lóng diāo fèng jǔ
- Literal Translation: dragon, carved, phoenix, beak
- Category: Communication
- Characters: 4