脍炙人口
- Literal
- slices and roast in people's mouths
- Figurative
- Of a poem, song, or line: so well loved that everyone quotes it and repeats it with relish; it is praise, not just a way of saying "famous."
Where does 脍炙人口 come from?
脍 is meat or fish cut into thin slices, and 炙 is roast meat: two delicacies everyone enjoys. They already appear that way in the 《孟子》 (the 尽心下 chapter): Gongsun Chou asks Mencius which tastes better, 脍炙 or 羊枣, a small fruit; Mencius says 脍炙, because it is a taste everyone shares, whereas the fondness for 羊枣 was particular to Zengzi's father. Later, the full phrase was applied to writings that people savor and repeat like a good mouthful. Today it praises well-loved works, songs, or lines, not people; 家喻户晓 says something is known to all, while this one says it is relished too.
Source (出处): 《孟子·尽心下》
How is 脍炙人口 used? Two examples
- 这首歌脍炙人口，连我奶奶都会唱几句。
This song is a much-loved classic; even my grandma can sing a few lines of it.
- 这部老电影里好几句台词脍炙人口，至今还常被人挂在嘴边。
Several lines from this old film are so well loved that people still quote them today.
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.
