📖 Meaning
Describes extreme sincerity and unwavering faithfulness. The imagery is of biting one's own flesh until the blood soaks into the bone, a metaphor for commitment so genuine it penetrates to the very core. It praises a person whose integrity and trustworthiness are beyond any doubt.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from a tale recorded in the Qing dynasty scholar Gu Sili's compilation Selected Poems of the Yuan Dynasty (元诗选), in the section on Ding Henian, a celebrated filial son of the late Yuan and early Ming period. When the wars that ended the Yuan dynasty scattered his family, Ding Henian's birth mother, Lady Feng, was stranded in the eastern village, where she fell ill and died. Learning of her death, Ding went to the village; because time had passed, he bit his finger to draw blood until it seeped into her bones (啮血沁骨) before he gathered and reverently reburied her remains. The story was preserved to honor his piercing sincerity and extreme filial devotion.
💡 Example Usage
他对朋友的承诺啮血沁骨，绝无半点虚言。
His promise to his friend was made with bone-deep sincerity, and not a single word of it was false.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 啮血沁骨
- Pinyin: niè xuè qìn gǔ
- Literal Translation: bite, blood, seep into, bone
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4