三天打魚,兩天曬網

简 三天打鱼,两天晒网 · 繁 三天打魚,兩天曬網
Mandarin · pinyin sān tiān dǎ yú , liǎng tiān shài wǎng

Meanings

  1. lit. to fish for three days and sun-dry the nets for two days (proverb)
  2. fig. not to persevere in doing sth
  3. to do sth by fits and starts
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

三
sān · three
天
tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
打
dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
魚
yú · fish; surname; Kangxi radical 195
兩
liǎng · two, both, pair, couple; ounce
曬
Look up this written character
網
Look up this written character
鱼
yú · fish; surname; Kangxi radical 195
两
liǎng · two, both, pair, couple; ounce
晒
shài · dry in sun, expose to sun
网
wǎng · net; network; Kangxi radical 122
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Connected dictionary

9character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.
Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

saam1 tin1 daa2 jyu4 ,loeng5 tin1 saai3 mong5

Pleco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Word reading; meanings not aligned.

三天打魚,兩天曬網 · san1 tian1 da3 yu2 , liang3 tian1 shai4 wang3
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 1,299
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record三天打魚,兩天曬網 三天打鱼,两天晒网 [san1 tian1 da3 yu2 , liang3 tian1 shai4 wang3] /lit. to fish for three days and sun-dry the nets for two days (proverb)/fig. not to persevere in doing sth/to do sth by fits and starts/