犯愁

• Pinyin: fàn chóu
• Hanzi breakdown: 犯 = 犭 + 己 (animal radical + self — to transgress or fall into something); 愁 = 秋 + 心 (autumn + heart — the melancholy feeling associated with autumn)

Meaning

To feel worried; to fret; to be troubled. To be in a state of anxious concern over a problem without a clear solution.

Colloquial and natural in spoken Chinese. 犯愁 typically describes a lingering, low-grade worry rather than acute panic. Frequently used when someone is stuck on a practical problem with no obvious way forward. Common in everyday conversation and literary dialogue.

Examples

1. 眼看着年底考核的日期逼近，却迟迟找不到突破口，他整日为此犯愁，连吃饭睡觉都提不起精神来。 With the year-end evaluation date getting closer and no breakthrough in sight, he worried about it all day and couldn’t even muster the energy to eat or sleep.
2. 孩子总是不好好吃饭，这让她每天都在为如何让孩子摄入足够营养而犯愁，试了许多方法却收效甚微。 Because her child never ate properly, she worried every day about how to make sure the child got enough nutrition, trying many methods with little effect.
3. 这个方案在技术层面没有太大问题，让他犯愁的倒是如何在预算严重不足的情况下保证项目的按时交付。 Technically the plan has no major issues; what worries him is how to ensure the project is delivered on time with a severely insufficient budget.

Usage Guide

Context: everyday, emotional, spoken

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 她为即将到来的公开演讲犯了好几天的愁，直到同事帮她一起整理了演讲思路并做了几次模拟练习之后，她的紧张情绪才逐渐平复下来。(She fretted for several days over the upcoming public speech, and it was only after a colleague helped her organise her thoughts and run through several mock rehearsals that her anxiety gradually settled.)
• 老王最近一直在为儿子的婚事犯愁，儿子年近三十却迟迟没有合适的对象，亲戚们每次聚会都免不了旁敲侧击地追问。(Old Wang has been fretting about his son's marriage lately — his son is nearly thirty and still has no suitable partner, and relatives never fail to probe the topic at every family gathering.)

Don't Say

• 犯愁 in formal written contexts — use 忧虑、担忧 or 焦虑 instead, as 犯愁 sounds too colloquial for official documents or academic writing

Origin & History

犯 (to fall into/encounter) + 愁 (sorrow/worry) — to fall into a state of worry

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal