魂飞魄散
hún fēi pò sàn
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 魂飛魄散
Terrified; so frightened that the soul seems to leave the body. It usually follows a word for 'frightened' to say how badly someone was scared.
Hồn bay đi, phách tan tác: sợ đến mức như hồn vía lìa khỏi xác. Thường đi sau từ chỉ sự sợ hãi để nói ai đó khiếp đảm đến mức nào.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): Hán-Việt reading 散 = tán; etymology of “hồn phi phách tán” = 魂飛魄散 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “hồn phi phách tán” (hon-phi-phach-tan). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “魂飞魄散” mean?
Terrified; so frightened that the soul seems to leave the body. It usually follows a word for 'frightened' to say how badly someone was scared. Literally: the soul takes flight, the spirit disperses
Is “魂飞魄散” formal or informal?
魂飞魄散 is generally neutral.