Japanese learners will no doubt be familiar with this one.
This is the first yo-ji-juku-go (Japanese 4-character idiom) I ever learnt, and for ages I wasn’t aware of it being an idiomatic expression at all. It’s presented in Japanese textbooks as being a regular adjective with a meaning of something like “with utmost effort”.
However, it is technically an idiomatic expression, and the meaning of the characters are:
一 one
生 life
懸 depends
命 fate
So a more accurate translation is something like “doing something as if your life depends on it”.
The artwork above is available from my Etsy site here:
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Any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch 🙂
Calligraphy by Vicky 