九死一生
jiǔ sǐ yī shēng
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
To be in extreme danger with only a slim chance of survival, or to come through such danger alive. Used for close calls and for ordeals that someone barely survived.
Chín phần chết, một phần sống: ở vào cảnh cực kỳ nguy hiểm, suýt mất mạng mà vẫn sống sót. Dùng để nói về những phen thoát chết trong gang tấc.
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 ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “cửu tử nhứt sanh” (cuu-tu-nhut-sanh). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “九死一生” mean?
To be in extreme danger with only a slim chance of survival, or to come through such danger alive. Used for close calls and for ordeals that someone barely survived. Literally: nine deaths, one life
Is “九死一生” formal or informal?
九死一生 is generally neutral.