📖 Meaning
Both nasal mucus and tears flow down at the same time, describing overwhelming, uncontrollable grief. The idiom vividly portrays someone so stricken by sorrow that they cannot hold back their tears or their sobbing. It is used to depict intense mourning or heartbreak.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from a Han dynasty funerary inscription, the anonymous 《安平相孙根碑》 (Stele of Sun Gen, Chancellor of Anping). The inscription records the mourners' grief at the chancellor's death, stating that 'blood relatives were stricken with sorrow, their snivel and tears falling together, while crying infants wailed until they lost their voice.' Later, 《魏书·崔亮传》 (History of the Wei Dynasty, Biography of Cui Liang) records an occasion where someone recited scripture so movingly that listeners wept in exactly this manner. The phrase has been used ever since to describe uncontrollable weeping from deep sorrow.
💡 Example Usage
听闻父亲去世的消息，他涕泪交零，悲痛欲绝。
Upon hearing the news of his father's death, he wept with tears and mucus streaming down his face, utterly devastated with grief.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 涕泪交零
- Pinyin: tì lèi jiāo líng
- Literal Translation: snivel, tears, together, falling
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4