📖 Meaning
The population grows more numerous day by day. It describes a steady increase in the number of people within a region or country. The phrase often carries an undertone of concern about demographic pressure when resources or governance are inadequate.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom traces to a memorial titled "Lun Shi Shi Zha Zi" (Memorial on Ten Matters) by the Song dynasty neo-Confucian scholar Cheng Yi (程颐). Cheng Yi warned the emperor that the wealthy were seizing lands across counties unchecked while the poor starved and wandered, and that the population kept multiplying without any system to manage it. His phrase "生齿日益繁而不为之制" — the population grows ever more numerous yet nothing is done to regulate it — became the source of the idiom. It originally served as a caution about the dangers of unchecked population growth amid social inequality.
💡 Example Usage
随着生齿日繁，城市住房压力日益增大。
As the population grows ever more numerous by the day, the pressure on urban housing steadily increases.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 生齿日繁
- Pinyin: shēng chǐ rì fán
- Literal Translation: born teeth, day, multiply
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4