死去活来 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to hover between life and death
• to suffer terribly
• within an inch of one's life

Character by character

• 死sǐdead; death; impassable, inflexible
• 去qùto go away, to leave, to depart
• 活huóto exist, to live, to survive; living, working
• 来láito arrive, to come, to return; in the future, late

Idioms sharing a character

• 不知死活 bù zhī sǐ huó
• 九死一生 jiǔ sǐ yī shēng
• 你死我活 nǐ sǐ wǒ huó
• 兔死狐悲 tù sǐ hú bēi
• 兔死狗烹 tù sǐ gǒu pēng
• 出生入死 chū shēng rù sǐ
• 半死不活 bàn sǐ bù huó
• 厚死薄生 hòu sǐ bó shēng
• 垂死挣扎 chuí sǐ zhēng zhá
• 客死异乡 kè sǐ yì xiāng

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