千山鸟飞绝

千山鳥飛絕

qiānshānniǎofēijué

phrase

Meanings

1 across a thousand hills, the flight of birds is cut off
2 (fig.) utter desolation and silence; the stillness of snowbound wilderness
3 (lit.) thousand-mountain bird-fly cease

Characters

mountain (千山 = countless hills)

to fly (鸟飞 = bird-flight)

cut off / vanish

Examples

雪后的山林千山鸟飞绝，安静得让人屏息。

Xuě hòu de shānlín qiān shān niǎo fēi jué, ānjìng de ràng rén bǐngxī.

After the snow, the forested hills — 'a thousand mountains, no bird flies' — were so still you held your breath.

疫情期间的城市，竟有几分千山鸟飞绝的寂寥。

Yìqíng qījiān de chéngshì, jìng yǒu jǐ fēn qiān shān niǎo fēi jué de jìliáo.

The city during the pandemic had a touch of that 'thousand-mountain, no bird flies' loneliness.

Tips

history

Opening line of 柳宗元《江雪》(Liu Zongyuan, Tang, written during his exile to Yongzhou ca. 810 CE): 千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭。孤舟蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪 (A thousand mountains — no bird flies; ten thousand paths — no human track. A lone boat, a straw-caped old man, fishing alone on the cold river's snow). One of the most famous 20-character poems in Chinese — a crystalline image of exile and solitude.

usage

Always recited with the next line 万径人踪灭 — together they form a parallel couplet. The four-character structure 千山...绝 / 万径...灭 is a classic example of 对仗 (tonal-grammatical parallelism).

Stroke Order

千 qiān

山 shān

鸟 niǎo

飞 fēi

绝 jué