📖 Meaning
To preserve one's youthful appearance and extend one's lifespan. It describes a practice or substance believed to keep a person looking young while adding years to their life. The idiom is most often associated with Daoist cultivation and elixir lore.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from Ming dynasty author Wu Cheng'en's novel Journey to the West, in the second chapter where Subhuti instructs Sun Wukong. After achieving the elixir, the disciple is told that even gods and ghosts find such power hard to tolerate. Though he may preserve his youth and extend his life, after five hundred years heaven will send down a thunder disaster, so he must understand his own nature and avoid it in advance.
💡 Example Usage
长期修习吐纳之术，不求成仙，但求驻颜益寿罢了。
He has long practiced breathing exercises, seeking not immortality but merely to preserve his youth and extend his years.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 驻颜益寿
- Pinyin: zhù yán yì shòu
- Literal Translation: halt, countenance, increase, longevity
- Category: Lifestyle
- Characters: 4