Chinese idiom · 成语
雪上加霜
Meaning
To add frost to snow; to worsen an already bad situation.
Character by character
Origin and story
religious metaphorSnow followed by frost provides an image of cold added to cold. The Jingde Chuandeng Lu (景德傳燈錄), compiled in the Song period, records related language in a Chan exchange with the monk Dayang: after a rebuke, the other speaker calls it 'adding still more frost to snow.' Another passage, concerning Yunmen Wenyan, uses the exact four-character phrase among images of unnecessary addition and aggravated difficulty.
The religious dialogues are not accounts of farmers enduring a particular winter disaster. They use a familiar natural image to sharpen a verbal point. In everyday speech the phrase now usually means a fresh misfortune worsening an already bad situation, whether the added burden is money trouble, delay, illness, or another setback.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
电脑刚坏，手机又摔了，这个月的开销真是雪上加霜。
My computer just broke and now I've dropped my phone—another blow to this month's budget.
For a second trouble making an existing difficulty worse.