📖 Meaning
Primarily a metaphor for close friends or relatives parting ways and dispersing. It can also refer literally to the sky clearing after rainfall, with clouds receding and sunshine returning.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom first appears in Tang dynasty poet Wen Tingyun's poem 'Sending Off Official Cui to His Post,' where he reflects on a twenty-year separation: 'My heart follows your gaze across three thousand li; rain has scattered and clouds have withdrawn for twenty years.' It also appears in Tang poet Shen Shi's 'Responding to My Husband,' where she laments a sudden parting, comparing the abrupt end of their shared life to rain scattering and clouds vanishing in an instant.
💡 Example Usage
雨散云收之后，昔日的挚友各奔天涯。
After the rain scattered and clouds withdrew, old friends each went their separate ways to distant horizons.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 雨散云收
- Pinyin: yǔ sàn yún shōu
- Literal Translation: rain, scatter, cloud, withdraw
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4