千鈞一髮

Chinese

a hair; something minute
trad. (千鈞一髮) 千鈞 一髮
simp. (千钧一发) 千钧 一发
Literally: “A thousand jun (unit of mass) hangs from a strip of hair.”

Etymology

Based on a passage in Liezi:

Later used to metaphorically mean "a crucial and emergent moment" in Book of Han & by Tang dynasty's writer Han Yu (Chen, 2014):[1]

Pronunciation


Phrase

千鈞一髮

  1. imminent peril; a matter of life or death

References

  1. Chen, Cheng. (2014). "A Contrastive Study of English and Chinese Temporal Metaphors from the Perspective of Culture" . Review of European Studies Archives Vol. 6, No. 1
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