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窮當益堅

简 穷当益坚 · 繁 窮當益堅
Mandarin · pinyin qióng dāng yì jiān

Meanings

  1. poor but ambitious (idiom); hard-pressed but determined
  2. the worse one's position, the harder one must fight back
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Characters in this entry

窮
Look up this written character
當
dāng · bear, accept, undertake; just
益
yì · profit, benefit; advantage; hexagram ䷩
堅
Look up this written character
穷
qióng · poor, destitute, impoverished
当
dāng · bear, accept, undertake; just
坚
jiān · hard, strong, firm; resolute
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Entries containing 窮當益堅 ↗Words written with 窮 ↗Words written with 當 ↗Words written with 益 ↗Words written with 堅 ↗Words written with 穷 ↗Words written with 当 ↗Words written with 坚 ↗

Mandarin tones

2–1–4–1 · qiong2 dang1 yi4 jian1

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Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

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Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.
Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

kung4 dong1 jik1 gin1

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

窮當益堅 · qiong2 dang1 yi4 jian1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 82,445
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record窮當益堅 穷当益坚 [qiong2 dang1 yi4 jian1] /poor but ambitious (idiom); hard-pressed but determined/the worse one's position, the harder one must fight back/