📖 Meaning
To be utterly destitute, as if everything has been washed away. It describes extreme poverty where one owns nothing at all.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase originates from the Yuan dynasty playwright Guan Hanqing's tragedy 'The Injustice to Dou E' (窦娥冤). In the prologue, the scholar Dou Tianzhang describes himself as completely impoverished, having lost everything, and wandering destitute in Chuzhou. The metaphor compares poverty to having been rinsed clean by water, leaving absolutely nothing behind. The expression became a common literary description of total destitution in later Chinese writing.
💡 Example Usage
遭遇那场大火后，他家一贫如洗，连件像样的衣服都没有了。
After that great fire, his family was left utterly destitute, without even a decent piece of clothing.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 一贫如洗
- Pinyin: yī pín rú xǐ
- Literal Translation: one, poor, like, washed
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4