Example: 人们会急火攻心

Does it mean 'heart was attacked with anxiety/anxiousness'? Therefore in the example it would mean people's heart would be anxious?

  • web search: baike.com/wiki/%E6%80%A5%E7%81%AB%E6%94%BB%E5%BF%83 : ....急火攻心是指心情发火，突然不省人事。... means losing one's temper, abruptly losing consciousness. therefore: people will lose their temper ..."idiom" in doubt: 急火攻心 does not seem to be particularly widely used, jukuu has 1 sample, LINE dictionary has 3 with 邪火攻心 "excessive internal heat", – user6065 Aug 21 '17 at 5:53
  • (re: answer #1) although 急火攻心 literally may mean "hot fire attacks heart", "heart attack" seems to be an even more serious event often leading to death (in comment #1, between "," and "abruptly" insert "to the extent of") – user6065 Aug 21 '17 at 8:09
  • 攻心 is a compound, with 心 not necessarily meaning "heart"， "现代汉语词典＂（１）从精神上或心理上瓦解对方：～战术。（２）俗称因悲痛、愤怒而神志昏迷为‘怒气功心’，因浑身溃烂或烧伤而发生生命危险为‘毒气功心’或‘火气功心’ – user6065 Aug 21 '17 at 8:26

It's a sudden heart attack by something unpleasant and unexpected, let's say a bombshell.



Because the emotion is too excited, and cause physical and mental discomfort.

There are 50 example sentences on the ichacha site.


I don't know anything about Traditional Chinese Medicine or 'excessive internal heat'.

Reading this explanation, I think you could, at least in some contexts, simply translate '急火攻心' as 'stress'.

"人由于在生活感情中遇到一些不舒心的事情，没有很好的适当的发泄出来，积压在心里。 最后导致疾病。"

  • I wasn't even aware that it was a medical term, i thought it was a modern idiom.... I have a gist of what it means now but still confused on how to put it in English – Fai91 Aug 22 '17 at 1:39
  • 急火攻心 is a type of disease. I'm not quite sure if it's an idiom, but it can be used as idiom I think. It's often used like 结果他急火攻心就... 他一时急火攻心就晕倒了。由于急火攻心，他病倒在床上了。 You can use it to describe the situation when some thing bad happened, which lead a person sickness. – dan Aug 22 '17 at 2:43
  • In fact, I wasn't even aware it is a disease as it is used often as a phrase in the daily life. – dan Aug 22 '17 at 2:50

Basic explanation refers to the mental illness caused by a person's lack of proper venting due to some uncomfortable things in life

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