created sense approved 梦蝶/夢蝶 · mèngdié · dreaming of being a butterfly — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"
梦蝶 / 夢蝶
mèngdié
dreaming of being a butterfly
(literary) To dream of being a butterfly; an allusion to a story in the [[庄子|莊子|zhuang1 zi3]] where the philosopher [[庄周|莊周|zhuang1 zhou1]] dreams of becoming a butterfly and awakes unsure if he is a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man; used as a metaphor for the illusory and fleeting nature of human life
梦 (literal) → 梦/夢 · mèng · to dream 蝶 (literal) → 蝶 · dié · butterfly
Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition