江郎才尽
jiāng​láng​cái​jìn

to have used up one's creative talent

  • created sense approved 江郎才尽/江郎才盡 · jiāng​láng​cái​jìn · to have used up one's creative talent — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    江郎才尽 / 江郎才盡

    jiāng​láng​cái​jìn

    to have used up one's creative talent

    (idiom) to have exhausted one's creative powers or literary energy; to have writer's block. Derived from a story about the poet Jiang Yan of the Southern Dynasties, whose talent reportedly vanished in his old age.

    江 (literal) → 江 · jiāng · Jiang (surname) 郎 (literal) → 郎 · láng · young man 才 (literal) → 才 · cái · talent 尽 (literal) → 尽/盡 · jìn · to use up

    Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

    created sense