Chinese idiom · 成语
大厦将倾
Meaning
The great hall will topple; impending collapse.
Character by character
Origin and story
Literary metaphorThe idiom imagines a great building about to fall. In the Ministry of Education dictionary's attestation from scene 20 of Liang Chenyu's Ming play Huansha Ji (浣紗記), a speaker worries about affairs at home while away and asks how one piece of timber could support a collapsing structure.
The building is a metaphor for a political order in severe danger; one isolated support cannot easily save the whole. In modern contexts the image can apply to a failing institution, business, or other large undertaking, not only to a physical building.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
连续失去主要客户后，这家公司已是大厦将倾。
After losing its main customers one after another, the company was on the brink of collapse.
Strong language for an organization nearing failure, not a routine setback.