📖 Meaning
This idiom describes experiencing all kinds of severe difficulties and hardships. It conveys enduring a tremendous amount of suffering and adversity, often in the pursuit of a goal. It is essentially equivalent to the more common idiom 千辛万苦.
📜 Origin Story
This phrase is a folk-style expression with no single definitive literary origin. It belongs to a family of Chinese four-character idioms that use the rhetorical device of 'thousand and ten thousand' to denote countless or immeasurable quantities, a pattern dating back to classical poetry and vernacular fiction. Such idioms became widespread in vernacular novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties, where they were used to describe the arduous journeys and struggles of characters. No specific historical figure or text is credited as the unique source.
💡 Example Usage
经过千难万苦，他终于走出了大山的深处。
After a thousand hardships and ten thousand bitter trials, he finally made his way out of the deep mountains.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 千难万苦
- Pinyin: qiān nán wàn kǔ
- Literal Translation: thousand, hardship, ten thousand, bitterness
- Category: Perseverance
- Characters: 4