宵衣旰食 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to dress before light and not eat before dark
• diligently attending to official matters

Character by character

• 宵xiāonight, evening, darkness
• 衣yīcloth; clothes, apparel; dress, coat
• 旰gànsunset, dusk; evening
• 食shífood; to eat

Idioms sharing a character

• 良宵美景 liáng xiāo měi jǐng
• 通宵达旦 tōng xiāo dá dàn
• 天衣无缝 tiān yī wú fèng
• 牛衣对泣 niú yī duì qì
• 白衣苍狗 bái yī cāng gǒu
• 相体裁衣 xiàng tǐ cái yī
• 节衣缩食 jié yī suō shí
• 缩衣节食 suō yī jié shí
• 腰金衣紫 yāo jīn yī zǐ
• 衣不蔽体 yī bù bì tǐ

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