LookupMandarin · 繁體 · English

ChineseCharactersMeanings inMandarin–English · CC-CEDICTSources ↗

DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

好高騖遠

简好高骛远 · 繁好高騖遠

Mandarin · pinyin hào gāo wù yuǎn

to bite off more than one can chew (idiom)
to aim too high

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

好: hǎo · good, excellent, fine; well
高: gāo · high, tall; lofty, elevated; Kangxi radical 189
騖: Look up this written character
遠: yuǎn · distant, remote, far; profound
骛: wù · gallop; rush about; pursue, run
远: yuǎn · distant, remote, far; profound

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–1–4–3 · hao4 gao1 wu4 yuan3

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

5character 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 Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

hou3 gou1 mou6 jyun5

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

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) to bite off more than one can chew

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack