Chinese idiom · 成语
豆蔻年华
Meaning
A girl’s early teenage years, traditionally around thirteen or fourteen.
Character by character
Origin and story
Literary expressionDu Mu’s Tang poem Zeng Bie (贈別), the first of two farewell poems, describes a girl just over thirteen and compares her with cardamom at the beginning of the second lunar month. The following lines evoke springtime in Yangzhou and continue the poem’s admiring comparison.
Later writers turn the plant image into a name for a girl’s early teenage years, especially thirteen or fourteen. 年华 is part of that later expression, not part of Du Mu’s quoted flower line. The term is literary and traditionally gender-specific; it is not a general synonym for the prime of life at any age.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
照片里的奶奶正值豆蔻年华，背着书包站在校门口。
In the photograph, Grandma is in her early teens, standing at the school gate with her schoolbag.
Literary description traditionally of girls around thirteen or fourteen.