To court someone talented with real persistence
The gap between those first two lines is the whole point of a chengyu. It is quoted whole, never assembled, and the literal reading is a picture from the story below rather than a definition — which is why translating the four characters one at a time rarely gets you there.
Liu Bei rode out to a farm in Longzhong to recruit the recluse Zhuge Liang and was turned away twice — once because he was out, once because he was asleep. On the third visit Liu Bei waited outside until he woke. Zhuge Liang served him for the rest of his life.
Source: 《出师表》Memorial on Sending Out the Troops, AD 227
The reading shown is the one each character takes inside this idiom — chengyu keep older readings, so it is not always the everyday one. The meanings are read from the same dictionary that powers the translators.
Want the stroke order for one of these? Each character links to its dictionary entry, which animates it.
三顾茅庐 is pronounced sān gù máo lú and means to court someone talented with real persistence. Literally it says "three visits to the thatched hut" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《出师表》Memorial on Sending Out the Troops, AD 227. Liu Bei rode out to a farm in Longzhong to recruit the recluse Zhuge Liang and was turned away twice — once because he was out, once because he was asleep. On the third visit Liu Bei waited outside until he woke. Zhuge Liang served him for the rest of his life.
sān gù máo lú. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice. Tones here are citation tones, so 一 is written yī even where it is said yí in running speech.
三 (sān) Three, 顾 (gù) Attends to (look around - consider), 茅 (máo) Thatched, 庐 (lú) Cottage (hut). These meanings come from the same dictionary as the translators on this site, and the reading shown is the one the character takes inside this idiom.
Yes. Chengyu are not archaic — they are ordinary educated speech, and they turn up in conversation, newspapers and exams. This one sits in the intermediate band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.
Rebuild 三顾茅庐 from scrambled tiles in the Chengyu Story Puzzle, test yourself on idiom meanings in the Chengyu Quiz, browse all the idioms, or save this one above and review it on your review deck.
Every idiom here comes with the story it was compressed from — that is the rule for being listed, and it is why they stick.
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