📖 Meaning
Refers to a blood feud that must be avenged — an irreconcilable, mortal hatred. The phrase pictures an enmity so deep that one cannot rest on a proper pillow but must sleep with a shield under one's head, ever alert for revenge. It denotes hatred so extreme that sharing the world with the enemy is impossible.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom comes from the 'Tan Gong' chapter of the Liji (Book of Rites), where Zixia asks Confucius how a person should conduct himself after his parents have been murdered. Confucius replies that the bereaved must sleep on a straw mat, pillow his head on a shield, take no office, and never coexist with the killer under the same sky. The Rites, compiled in the Western Han dynasty but preserving the teachings of Confucius and his disciples from the Spring and Autumn period, uses the shield as a pillow to symbolize unceasing vigilance for vengeance. From this ritual prescription, 'zhen gan zhi chou' came to denote an irreconcilable feud.
💡 Example Usage
父仇未报，枕干之雠常萦心头。
With my father's death still unavenged, the blood feud that calls for a shield for a pillow haunts my mind day and night.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 枕干之雠
- Pinyin: zhěn gàn zhī chóu
- Literal Translation: pillow, shield, of, enmity
- Category: Emotion
- Characters: 4