头破血流 — “To be badly battered and bruised”

Q: What is the Chinese definition of 头破血流?

头打破了，血流满面。多用来形容惨败。

头破血流 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to be badly battered and bruised”. To suffer a crushing defeat or severe injury, often implying a disastrous outcome. Literally, “head broken, blood flowing”.

Frequency

头破血流 Pronunciation and Pinyin

头破血流 Character Breakdown

Stroke Order

Character	Pinyin	Strokes	Meaning
头	tóu	5	head
破	pò	10	break, destroy, or defeat
血	xuè	6	blood
流	liú	10	to flow, circulate, or spread

Example Sentence with 头破血流

他们在那次市场竞争中，被对手打得头破血流，几乎无法翻身。

In that market competition, they were utterly defeated by their opponents, almost unable to recover.

Origin and Story of 头破血流

During their pilgrimage to the West for Buddhist scriptures, Tang Sanzang and his disciples encountered a scene where Taoist priests were forcing Buddhist monks to perform labor.

Sun Wukong approached the Taoist priest, claiming that these monks were his relatives. The priest, after some persuasion, agreed to let Wukong release one monk.

However, all the monks eagerly wished to escape the Taoist's control. Sun Wukong then demanded the release of all 500 monks, which the Taoist priest vehemently refused.

Enraged, Sun Wukong pulled out his Ruyi Jingu Bang (golden cudgel) and severely beat the Taoist priest until his head was broken and blood flowed profusely. Subsequently, Wukong set all the monks free.