DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

大器晚成

Mandarin · pinyin dà qì wǎn chéng

lit. it takes a long time to make a big pot (idiom); fig. a great talent matures slowly
in the fullness of time a major figure will develop into a pillar of the state
Rome wasn't built in a day

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

大: dà · big, great, vast, large, high
器: qì · receptacle, vessel; instrument
晚: wǎn · night, evening; late
成: chéng · completed, finished, fixed

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–4–3–2 · da4 qi4 wan3 cheng2

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

大器晚成 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

(idiomatic) a person of great talent matures late and achieves success only later in life; (by extension) great things take a long time to come to fruition

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

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