千钧一发

千鈞一髮

qiānjūn-yífà

idiom HSK 7-9 #26,743

Meanings

1 a critical moment; a hair's breadth from disaster
2 hanging by a thread

Characters

an ancient unit of weight (~15 kg)

Literally 'a thousand 钧 (30,000 jin) hanging from a single hair' - an enormous weight suspended by the thinnest thread, about to snap at any moment.

Examples

HSK 6

千钧一发的时刻，消防员冲进了火场。

Qiānjūn-yífà de shíkè, xiāofáng yuán chōng jìn le huǒchǎng.

At the critical moment, the firefighters rushed into the blaze.

HSK 7-9

在千钧一发之际，他被救了出来。

Zài qiānjūn-yífà zhījì, tā bèi jiù le chūlái.

At the last critical moment, he was rescued.

Tips

history

This idiom comes from the Han dynasty scholar 枚乘, who wrote to a king: 'It is like a thousand 钧 weight hanging by a single hair - the danger is beneath it.' A 钧 was about 15 kg, so 千钧 ≈ 15 tons dangling from one strand of hair.

Stroke Order

千 qiān

钧 jūn

一 yī

发 fā