滔滔不绝
tāo tāo bù jué · HSK 7
word
🌊🗣️ 滔滔 = surging floodwater + 不绝 = never cut off: words pour out and never stop
滔滔 doubles the water-flood character for an unceasing torrent; 不绝 means not cut off. Together the idiom describes someone whose talk gushes on and on without a pause, gabbling forty to the dozen.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
绝 — silk 纟 + 巴 (phonetic-ish, knife cutting threads)
绝 originally depicted cutting silk threads with a knife, conveying the idea of severing or cutting off completely. From this concrete sense it extended to mean 'to break off,' 'exhausted,' and figuratively 'absolute' or 'extreme.' The simplified form replaced the older right-hand component with 巴.