📖 Meaning
To describe having gone through extreme dangers and hardships, barely surviving. It conveys the experience of narrowly escaping death multiple times.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from a poem by the Tang dynasty poet Han Yu, titled 'On the Fifteenth of the Eighth Month, Presented to Zhang Gongcao.' In the poem, Han Yu describes arriving at his official post after a harrowing journey, writing that he survived through ten lives and nine deaths to reach the government office, where he lived in seclusion as if hiding in exile. The phrase vividly depicts the perils he endured during his difficult posting.
💡 Example Usage
他十生九死地逃出战乱之地，终于与家人团聚。
Having narrowly escaped death many times, he finally fled the war-torn region and reunited with his family.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 十生九死
- Pinyin: shí shēng jiǔ sǐ
- Literal Translation: ten lives, nine deaths
- Category: Perseverance
- Characters: 4