📖 Meaning
Like covering a thousand miles in a single day. It originally described a horse galloping extremely fast, and later came to be used metaphorically to describe progress or development that is extraordinarily rapid. It is essentially a variant of the more common idiom 一日千里.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from the Tang dynasty poet Cao Tang's work 'Five Poems on a Sick Horse Presented to Editorial Secretary Zheng, Master Zhang San, and Master Wu Shiwu,' specifically the third poem, which contains the line '一朝千里心犹在，争肯潜忘秣饲恩' (The heart that once galloped a thousand li in a morning is still alive — how could I silently forget the grace of being fed and tended). In the poem, Cao Tang uses a sick, aged horse as a metaphor for a once-talented person who has fallen on hard times yet still remembers past kindness and retains his former ambition. The phrase was later extracted and used independently to describe swift progress.
💡 Example Usage
这项人工智能技术的发展可谓一朝千里，短短几年间便深刻改变了各行各业。
The development of this artificial intelligence technology has advanced at a breathtaking pace, profoundly transforming every industry in just a few short years.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 一朝千里
- Pinyin: yī zhāo qiān lǐ
- Literal Translation: one morning, thousand li
- Category: Distance
- Characters: 4