一扫而空

一掃而空

yìsǎo'érkōng

idiom #36,065

Meanings

HSK 4

听到好消息，他的烦恼一扫而空。

Tīngdào hǎo xiāoxi, tā de fánnǎo yìsǎo'érkōng.

On hearing the good news, his worries were swept away in an instant.

HSK 5

超市打折，货架上的商品一扫而空。

Chāoshì dǎzhé, huòjià shàng de shāngpǐn yìsǎo'érkōng.

With the supermarket sale, the shelves were cleaned out completely.

usage

Two main uses: emotional (worries, gloom swept away) and physical (goods, food, stock cleared out). Same phrase, context tells you which.

grammar

Apostrophe in pinyin: yīsǎo'érkōng, needed before the vowel-initial syllable 而 so it doesn't run into the previous syllable.

一 yī

扫 sǎo

而 ér

空 kōng