惨淡经营
cǎn dàn jīng yíng
to keep something going by painstaking effort against the odds
Character by character
惨cǎn
dismal
dismal
淡dàn
dim
dim
经jīng
plan
plan
营yíng
manage
manage
Example
这家小书店惨淡经营了十几年，去年还是关门了。
The little bookshop struggled on for more than ten years, but it closed last year all the same.
Tone: neutral.
Usage and origin
From 杜甫’s poem on the painter 曹霸 (意匠惨淡经营中), where it meant laboured thought over a composition. Now mostly of a business barely surviving.
Learn this in Lesson 221 · HSK 9+: 老舍的《茶馆》 (Lao She’s Teahouse and the Beijing voice)
A dialogue, a reading, word cards with audio and a drill that uses it, in Learn Chinese with Bao. The first lessons of every level are free.
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