Situations
五里霧中
오리무중
wǔ lǐ wù zhōng
O-ri-mu-jung
五
다섯 오
里
마을 리
霧
안개 무
中
가운데 중
Character by character
Meaning
Inside a fog five li deep — completely unable to make sense of things.
Origin
From the Book of the Later Han, where Zhang Kai could conjure a fog five li across.
How it is used
Used when an investigation or situation is going nowhere.
Hanja五里霧中
Simplified五里雾中
Korean reading오리무중
Pinyinwǔ lǐ wù zhōng
Frequently asked questions
Q. What does O-ri-mu-jung mean?
五里霧中 · Inside a fog five li deep — completely unable to make sense of things.
Q. Where does O-ri-mu-jung come from?
From the Book of the Later Han, where Zhang Kai could conjure a fog five li across.
Q. How is O-ri-mu-jung used?
Used when an investigation or situation is going nowhere.
Idioms in the same group
四面楚歌 Sa-myeon-cho-gaChu songs on all four sides — surrounded with nowhere to turn.進退兩難 Jin-toe-yang-nanHard to advance and hard to retreat.累卵之危 Nu-ran-ji-wiAs precarious as a stack of eggs.風前燈火 Pung-jeon-deung-hwaA lamp flame before the wind — an extremely precarious state.雪上加霜 Seol-sang-ga-sangFrost on top of snow — one misfortune stacked on another.轉禍爲福 Jeon-hwa-wi-bokDisaster turned into good fortune.
The idioms used in Korea mix phrases from the Chinese classics with ones coined in Korea. Where an expression is not used in China, the entry says so.