饥寒交迫 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• beset by hunger and cold
• starving and freezing
• in desperate poverty

Character by character

• 饥jīhungry, starving; hunger, famine
• 寒hánchilly, cold; poor; to shiver, to tremble
• 交jiāoto connect; to deliver, to exchange; to intersect;
• 迫pòto compel, to force; pressing, urgent

Idioms sharing a character

• 啼饥号寒 tí jī háo hán
• 如饥似渴 rú jī sì kě
• 漏脯充饥 lòu fǔ chōng jī
• 画饼充饥 huà bǐng chōng jī
• 饥不择食 jī bù zé shí
• 饥肠辘辘 jī cháng lù lù
• 不寒而栗 bù hán ér lì
• 乍暖还寒 zhà nuǎn huán hán
• 唇亡齿寒 chún wáng chǐ hán
• 问寒问暖 wèn hán wèn nuǎn

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