呕心沥血
- Literal
- vomiting the heart, dripping blood
- Figurative
- To pour heart and soul into a work, a project or a cause at an exhausting cost; the stress is on the toll, not on loyal service (鞠躬尽瘁).
Where does 呕心沥血 come from?
The first half comes from the short biography of the poet Li He by the Tang poet Li Shangyin. It tells how Li He went out every day on a donkey, followed by a young servant, with an old brocade bag; whenever a line came to him, he wrote it down and dropped it in. At nightfall his mother had the bag emptied and, seeing how much he had written, would say that this son of hers would not stop until he vomited up his heart. The second half, "dripping blood," echoes a line by Han Yu about writing in blood; the two were joined into one idiom later. Today it praises anyone who wears themselves out for a work or a cause.
Source (出处): 李商隐《李长吉小传》
How is 呕心沥血 used? Two examples
- 这部纪录片是导演呕心沥血拍了五年的作品。
This documentary is the film the director poured his heart and soul into over five years of shooting.
- 她呕心沥血改了十几稿的方案，被领导一句话就否了。
She slaved over that proposal through more than ten drafts, and the boss shot it down in a single sentence.
In Wanyu, all 400 chengyu have audio on every sentence, and you can save them to your decks and review them with spaced repetition. Free.
