沉醉不知归路

沉醉不知歸路
chénzuìbùzhīguīlù
phrase

Meanings

  1. 1 deep in my cups, I don't know the way home
  2. 2 (fig.) so immersed in pleasure you lose your bearings
  3. 3 (lit.) sink-drunk not-know return-road

Examples

Nà tiān jùhuì dàjiā chénzuì bù zhī guīlù, yīzhí liáo dào tiān liàng.
At that gathering everyone was 'so deep in their cups they forgot the road home' — we talked till dawn.
Tā dú nà běn xiǎoshuō chénzuì bù zhī guīlù, zhěng wǎn méi shuì.
He was so lost in that novel — 'drunk beyond knowing the way back' — he stayed up all night.

Tips

history
From 李清照·》(Li Qingzhao, Northern Song, ca. 1100, written as a teenage memory): 沉醉不知深处 (I still recall the creekside pavilion at dusk, so deep in my cups I forgot the way home. Delight spent, I rowed back late — blundered into the deep of lotus bloom. Row! Row! — and startled a whole shoal of gulls and egrets). One of the most beloved short ci poems, a rare first-person female voice celebrating carefree girlhood.
usage
In modern use, 沉醉 has broadened from literal drunkenness to any kind of rapt absorption (music, love, a book). The tone is lyrical, not rebuking.

Stroke Order

chén
zuì
zhī
guī