无忧无虑
- Literal
- no worry, no care
- Figurative
- Carefree and free of worries; living at ease without anything weighing on your mind.
Where does 无忧无虑 come from?
It is not a tale with a moral but a literary expression whose earliest documented appearance is in Yuan-dynasty drama: the play "Renzi ji" (忍字记) by Zheng Tingyu (郑廷玉), whose second act reads "做了个草庵中无忧无虑的僧家" ("I have become a monk without sorrows or cares in his hermitage"). It is built on the parallel pattern 无…无… ("without… without…"), repeating 无 before 忧 "sorrow" and 虑 "worry." Since then it has described a state of mind free of burdens, especially that of children or of a life without strain.
Source (出处): 《忍字记》
How is 无忧无虑 used? Two examples
- 小时候我们无忧无虑,每天只想着出去玩。
As children we were carefree, and every day all we thought about was going out to play.
- 退休以后,他过着无忧无虑的生活。
After retiring, he leads a carefree life.