披荆斩棘

Pronunciation: pī jīng zhǎn jí Literal meaning: Cut thorns break brambles

Origin & Usage

The History of the Later Han records Emperor Guangwu presenting Feng Yi to his court as the man who had been his registrar when he first raised troops: 为吾披荆棘，定关中 — he cut through the thorns for me and settled the land within the passes. The four-character idiom grew out of that sentence, adding 斩, to hack, to the parting (披) of the thorns. 荆 and 棘 are two different thorny shrubs, and naming both is not padding: the point is that the obstruction is varied and continuous rather than a single barrier. Pioneering work of any kind, with the implication that the road exists now because somebody made it.

Examples

English: "She built her company from scratch, overcoming countless challenges"

Chinese: 她白手起家创建公司，克服了无数挑战