p8nda
p8nda BETA
Home Dictionary Translate Flashcards Sign in

无边落木萧萧下

無邊落木蕭蕭下
wúbiān luòmù xiāoxiāo xià
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 boundless falling leaves rustle down
  2. 2 an autumn scene of endless drifting leaves
  3. 3 (lit.) limitless fallen-wood rustle-rustle descends

Examples

秋风起，无边落木萧萧下，令人感伤。
Qiū fēng qǐ, wúbiānluòmùxiāoxiāoxià, lìngrén gǎnshāng.
The autumn wind rises, boundless leaves rustle down — it stirs melancholy.
他用无边落木萧萧下形容这凋零的景象。
Tāyòng wúbiānluòmùxiāoxiāoxià xíngróng zhè diāolíng de jǐngxiàng.
He described the withered scene as 'boundless falling leaves rustling down.'

Tips

history
From Du Fu's (杜甫, Tang) 《登高》: 无边落木萧萧下，不尽长江滚滚来。(Boundless falling leaves rustle down; the unending Yangtze rolls on.) Written in 767 during Du Fu's exile in Kuizhou, the poem is often called the greatest 七律 (seven-syllable regulated verse) in Chinese literature for its parallelism and imagery.
usage
落木 is Tang-era usage for 落叶 (falling leaves) — you won't hear it in modern speech outside of literary reference. 萧萧 (xiāoxiāo) = the sound of wind in leaves, a reduplicative onomatopoeia. Paired with 不尽长江滚滚来.

Stroke Order

无 wú
边 biān
落 luò
木 mù
萧 xiāo
下 xià