Chinese idiom · 成语
天塌地陷
Meaning
Sky falls, earth sinks; catastrophic collapse.
Character by character
Origin and story
literary expressionThe expression imagines the greatest possible upheaval: the sky collapses and the earth gives way. A checked occurrence appears in chapter 39 of Wen Kang's Qing novel Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan. Deng Zhenbiao boastfully dismisses even such a catastrophe as impossible while declaring the permanence of his own good fortune and the dynasty. The wording functions as extreme exaggeration, not as a record of a particular earthquake. Later speakers use the same image for overwhelming disaster, a frightening change, or the feeling that one's whole world has fallen apart. The scale may be emotional rather than literal.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
收到落榜通知时，他觉得天塌地陷，过了几天才慢慢振作起来。
When he received the rejection notice, he felt his world had collapsed; only after a few days did he begin to recover.
A strong, often figurative description of catastrophic upheaval or distress.