📖 Meaning
A metaphor for precious things being broken, scattered, and destroyed. It evokes the sorrowful image of once-treasured items reduced to fragments and lost over time.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom originates from the Yuan dynasty work《萱堂记》by the scholar 同恕 (Tong Shu). The text recounts how inscriptions and poems were once composed to praise and celebrate virtue, with scrolls piled brilliantly. Yet after seventy years had passed, the precious writings had scattered like fallen pearls and jade, with nothing left surviving. It laments how even the most treasured creations inevitably succumb to ruin and loss over the passage of time.
💡 Example Usage
历经战乱，那些珍贵的典籍珠零玉落，再难寻觅。
After years of war, those precious texts were scattered and destroyed, never to be found again.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 珠零玉落
- Pinyin: zhū líng yù luò
- Literal Translation: pearls scatter, jade falls
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4