📖 Meaning
Describes a scene where many people are working together at once, often in a busy or somewhat flustered manner. It paints the image of numerous hands moving simultaneously to get a task done quickly.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant written form of the more common '七手八脚', and also appears in older texts as '七足八手'. It does not trace to a single specific textual source but arose as a colloquial expression depicting cooperative yet hurried labor. The phrase vividly evokes many limbs in motion at the same moment.
💡 Example Usage
听到孩子摔倒了，几个邻居七鄐八手地把他抬上了车。
Hearing that the child had fallen, several neighbors hurriedly carried him to the car, all hands working at once.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 七鄐八手
- Pinyin: qī xì bā shǒu
- Literal Translation: seven, hand (variant), eight, hand
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4