goi Back to the route map日本語

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Meaning

the most one can manage

The utmost one can do; the limit that no amount of effort will get past.

Example

この予算では現状維持が関の山だ。

With this budget, keeping things as they are is the best we can manage.

Origin

Seki refers to Seki-juku, a post town on the Tōkaidō in what is now Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, and yama to festival floats (dashi). There are two theories: that the floats of the Seki Shrine festival were so lavish people said no greater extravagance was possible, or that the floats filled the full width of the post town's narrow street as they paraded through.

Sources