📖 Meaning
Literally means being unable to eat one's fill at breakfast or dinner. It describes a life of extreme poverty where one cannot even get enough to eat. The idiom paints a vivid picture of destitution and chronic hunger.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from 'Jingben Tongsu Xiaoshuo' (京城通俗小说), a collection of vernacular stories from the Song or Yuan dynasty. It appears in the story 'Niu Xianggong' (拗相公), which satirizes Wang Anshi, the Northern Song reformer. The original passage notes that the people were impoverished and the nation's resources exhausted, with commoners unable to eat their fill and lacking spare money to raise horses and mules. Over time, the phrase became a classical expression for dire poverty.
💡 Example Usage
连年战乱，百姓饔飧不饱，流离失所。
After years of continuous warfare, the common people could not even get enough to eat and were left homeless.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 饔飧不饱
- Pinyin: yōng sūn bù bǎo
- Literal Translation: breakfast, dinner, not, full
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4