断袖之癖 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. cut sleeve ; fig. euphemism for homosexuality, originating from History of Western Han 漢書|汉书: emperor Han Aidi (real name Liu Xin) was in bed with his lover Dong Xian, and had to attend a court audience that morning. Not wishing to awaken Dong Xian, who was sleeping with his head resting on the emperor's long robe sleeve, Aidi used a knife to cut off the lower half of his sleeve.

Character by character

• 断duànto sever, to cut off, to interrupt
• 袖xiùsleeve
• 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
• 癖pǐcraving, addiction; habit, hobby; indigestion

Idioms sharing a character

• 一刀两断 yī dāo liǎng duàn
• 伤筋断骨 shāng jīn duàn gǔ
• 割袍断义 gē páo duàn yì
• 多谋善断 duō móu shàn duàn
• 应机立断 yìng jī lì duàn
• 投鞭断流 tóu biān duàn liú
• 接连不断 jiē lián bù duàn
• 断壁残垣 duàn bì cán yuán
• 断港绝潢 duàn gǎng jué huáng
• 断章取义 duàn zhāng qǔ yì

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.