📖 Meaning
Using a broken earthenware jar as a window and a mulberry branch as a door pivot. It is a metaphor for extreme poverty and a destitute household, describing people living in very humble conditions.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom is a variant of '瓮牖绳枢' (wèng yǒu shéng shū), which originates from '过秦论' (The Faults of Qin) by Jia Yi of the Western Han dynasty. In that famous essay, Jia Yi described Chen Sheng, the leader of the peasant uprising against the Qin dynasty, as a man of humble origins whose home had windows made of broken jars and door pivots made of rope. The phrase became a classical metaphor for poverty and low social standing, and '瓮牖桑枢' substitutes mulberry wood for rope as the door pivot while conveying the same meaning.
💡 Example Usage
他虽出身瓮牖桑枢之家，却凭努力成为一代名臣。
Though born into a family of broken-jar windows and mulberry-wood door pivots, he became a renowned statesman through his own efforts.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 瓮牖桑枢
- Pinyin: wèng yǒu sāng shū
- Literal Translation: jar, window, mulberry, pivot
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4