📖 Meaning
One's five internal organs all shatter, describing a state of extreme grief and sorrow. It conveys the feeling that the emotional pain is so overwhelming that it feels as though one's very organs are breaking apart. The idiom is used to depict the deepest level of heartbreak and anguish.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom draws upon the traditional Chinese concept of the five viscera (五内) — the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys — which were believed to house both physical functions and emotional states in classical Chinese medicine. The image of all five organs collapsing simultaneously represents grief so profound that it overwhelms the entire body. While no single classical text is cited as its definitive source, the expression follows a long literary tradition of using visceral imagery to describe emotional devastation. Similar metaphorical language appears throughout Chinese literature, where internal organs serve as the seat of sorrow.
💡 Example Usage
听到儿子阵亡的消息，老母亲五内俱崩，当场昏倒在地。
Hearing the news of her son's death in battle, the old mother was so grief-stricken that she collapsed on the spot.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 五内俱崩
- Pinyin: wǔ nèi jù bēng
- Literal Translation: five, internal organs, all, collapse
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4