山外有山,天外有天

Mandarin · pinyin shān wài yǒu shān , tiān wài yǒu tiān

Meanings

  1. (idiom) however good sth is, there is always sth better
  2. in the wider world there are people more talented than oneself
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Characters in this entry

山
shān · mountain, hill, peak
外
wài · out, outside, external; foreign
有
yǒu · have, own, possess; exist
天
tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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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.

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山外有山,天外有天 · shan1 wai4 you3 shan1 , tian1 wai4 you3 tian1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 35,661
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record山外有山,天外有天 山外有山,天外有天 [shan1 wai4 you3 shan1 , tian1 wai4 you3 tian1] /(idiom) however good sth is, there is always sth better/in the wider world there are people more talented than oneself/