📖 Meaning
Refers to a widow and her young, helpless children—the most vulnerable members of society. It highlights defenselessness and destitution after the loss of a family's provider. In its original context it underscores that even such weak figures can grasp what sheer determination can achieve.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from the Daoist text Liezi (《列子·汤问》), in the well-known story of the Foolish Old Man Removing the Mountains (愚公移山). When the wise man Zhi Sou mocked the old man's plan to level two mountains, Yu Gong retorted that Zhi Sou's mind was less flexible than that of a widow and her orphan child. The line reads: 'Your stubbornness is so fixed it cannot be penetrated—you are not even the equal of a widow and her orphan.' The idiom thus entered the language as a symbol of the weakest yet most clear-headed members of society.
💡 Example Usage
官府理应体恤孀妻弱子，岂可横征暴敛？
The authorities ought to show compassion for widows and orphaned children—how could they extort taxes from them?
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 孀妻弱子
- Pinyin: shuāng qī ruò zǐ
- Literal Translation: widow, wife, weak, child
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4