Chinese idiom · 成语
岁寒三友
Meaning
The Three Friends of Winter—pine, bamboo, and plum—symbols of endurance, integrity, and steadfast friendship.
Character by character
Origin and story
Artistic symbolismThe three friends are pine, bamboo, and plum. Pine and bamboo retain their greenery through cold weather, while plum blossoms open in the cold season. Writers and artists made their endurance a comparison for constancy, integrity, and friendship tested by hardship. The National Palace Museum traces this combined painting subject to the Southern Song; it later became common on ceramics and scholars’ objects as well.
The phrase is also explicitly attested for the three plants in the play Yuqiao Xianhua (漁樵閑話). It names a symbolic grouping rather than three historical companions in an origin story. References to human friendship build on that botanical and artistic image, which remains the phrase’s central meaning.
In everyday life
奶奶选了一幅岁寒三友图挂在书房，说喜欢松竹梅的精神。
Grandma chose a painting of the Three Friends of Winter for her study, saying she admired what pine, bamboo, and plum represent.
Primarily the pine–bamboo–plum motif; metaphorical friendship is an extension, not the only meaning.