📖 Meaning
Like ants and bees swarming together in dense clusters. The idiom describes a vast multitude of people gathering or assembling in overwhelming numbers, often with a sense of chaotic, teeming congestion.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the Qing dynasty poet Wu Weiye's work 'Yanmen Shangshu Xing' (《雁门尚书行》), where he writes that rebels 'swarmed like ants and bees into the city, brandishing spears and shouting wildly.' It was later used by Qing scholar Dai Junheng in his preface to the collected works of Fang Bao, where he remarked that from the Eastern Han to the Ming dynasty, countless scholars and poets 'swarmed like ants and bees' — too numerous to count. The imagery draws on the natural behavior of ants and bees clustering densely together.
💡 Example Usage
起义军蚁聚蜂屯，迅速占领了县城。
The rebel forces swarmed together like ants and bees, quickly seizing the county town.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 蚁聚蜂屯
- Pinyin: yǐ jù fēng tún
- Literal Translation: ant, gather, bee, swarm
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4