📖 Meaning
Describes a landscape of countless towering cliffs and deep winding valleys stretching endlessly. It conveys the majestic grandeur and rugged variety of mountainous terrain, often used in poetry and prose to evoke awe at nature's scale.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom first appears in Liu Yiqing's 'A New Account of the Tales of the World' (Shishuo Xinyu) from the Liu Song dynasty, where the painter Gu Kaizhi (Gu Changkang), returning from Kuaiji, described the scenery as 'a thousand cliffs vying in beauty, ten thousand ravines racing in torrents.' The Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi later echoed the phrase in his poem 'Inscribed on the Old Mountain Pool Stone Wall of Prince Qi,' likening a cool scene after rain to being 'amidst a thousand cliffs and ten thousand ravines.' The idiom was further popularized in modern times by Marshal Chen Yi's revolutionary poetry.
💡 Example Usage
列车穿行于千岩万壑之间，窗外风景如画。
The train wound its way through countless cliffs and ravines, the scenery outside the window picturesque as a painting.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 千岩万壑
- Pinyin: qiān yán wàn hè
- Literal Translation: thousand, cliff, ten thousand, ravine
- Category: Variety
- Characters: 4