Chinese idiom · 成语
不绝如缕
Meaning
Hanging by a thread; also, a faint sound lingering continuously.
Character by character
Origin and story
Literary imageThe image is something continuing by only a slender thread. Liu Zongyuan uses the exact wording in his letter to Xu Mengrong, fearing that his family line may barely survive because he has no child and little prospect of marriage in exile. Related thread imagery also appears in the Gongyang Commentary in the variant 不绝若线, describing a precarious political situation.
Su Shi's Chibi Fu gives the phrase another memorable use: the lingering sound of a flute seems as fine and continuous as a thread. Thus the idiom can describe either fragile survival or a faint sustained sound.
In everyday life
夜深了，窗外的笛声依然不绝如缕。
Late into the night, the flute outside the window continued in a thin, lingering thread of sound.
Here it describes a faint sustained sound, not a loud continuous noise.