📖 Meaning
To carefully research and deeply ponder a subject. It describes someone who devotes great effort and concentration to academic or intellectual inquiry. It is equivalent to the idiom 研精覃思.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom comes from a letter by the Northern Song dynasty scholar Wang Ling (王令, 1032–1059), titled 'Reply to Liu Gongzhu Wei Zhi' (《答刘公著微之书》). In it, Wang Ling describes his approach to learning: '研精苦思，扪隙发罅，以窥求门户' — painstakingly studying and reflecting, probing every gap and crack in knowledge to find the gateway to understanding. Wang Ling was renowned for living in poverty yet devoting himself wholeheartedly to scholarship, dying young but leaving a respected body of poetry and prose.
💡 Example Usage
他闭门研精苦思十余载，终于完成了这部学术巨著。
He shut himself away, painstakingly researching and reflecting for over a decade, until he finally completed this monumental academic work.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 研精苦思
- Pinyin: yán jīng kǔ sī
- Literal Translation: study finely, think painstakingly
- Category: Learning
- Characters: 4