若有所失

ruòyǒu-suǒshī
idiom

Meanings

  1. 1 as if having lost something
  2. 2 feeling distracted or unsettled
  3. 3 feeling empty

Examples

HSK 3
Tīngdào zhège xiāoxī hòu, tā ruòyǒu-suǒshī de zuò zài nàlǐ.
After hearing the news, he sat there as if he had lost something.
HSK 3
Tā zhěngtiān ruòyǒu-suǒshī, yí jù huà yě bù shuō.
She seemed lost in thought all day and didn't say a word.

Tips

history
Recorded in Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (《聊斋志异·黄九郎》), where a character was 'restless as if having lost something, forgetting to eat or sleep' - describing the daze of an obsessed lover.
memory
Parse as (as if) + 有所 (have something) + (lost) - 'as if there were something lost.' The vagueness is the point: you can't say what's missing, only that something is.

Stroke Order

ruò
yǒu
suǒ
shī