📖 Meaning
Refers to lofty aspirations that remain unfulfilled. Originally described someone who lived a frustrated life and grew old before their ambitions could be realized. It is also used when a person dies before accomplishing their goals, leaving their great dreams unrealized.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from the Tang dynasty poet Li Pin's work "Spring Day Longing for Home" (春日思归), which contains the line "Lofty ambitions unfulfilled with the three-foot sword at my side, my homeland vainly separated by ten thousand mountains." The poem was written when Li Pin, a frustrated scholar-official, found himself far from home and unable to advance his career or serve the state as he had hoped. The sword imagery evokes the traditional aspiration of a literati to achieve greatness through service, which circumstances denied him. Over time the phrase came to broadly denote great ambitions that go unrealized, whether due to age, death, or thwarted circumstances.
💡 Example Usage
一生壮志未酬，临终前他将毕生手稿托付给挚友。
With his lifelong ambitions unfulfilled, he entrusted his lifelong manuscripts to a close friend on his deathbed.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 壮志未酬
- Pinyin: zhuàng zhì wèi chóu
- Literal Translation: great ambition, not yet, realized
- Category: Determination
- Characters: 4