成事不足,敗事有餘

简 成事不足,败事有余 · 繁 成事不足,敗事有餘
Mandarin · pinyin chéng shì bù zú , bài shì yǒu yú

Meanings

  1. unable to accomplish anything but liable to spoil everything (idiom)
  2. unable to do anything right
  3. never make, but always mar
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Characters in this entry

成
chéng · completed, finished, fixed
事
shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
足
zú · foot; attain, satisfy, enough; Kangxi radical 156
敗
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有
yǒu · have, own, possess; exist
餘
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败
bài · be defeated, decline, fail
余
yú · I, my, me; surname; surplus
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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成事不足,敗事有餘 · find source passages ↗ · 成事不足,败事有余 · find source passages ↗

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成事不足,敗事有餘 · cheng2 shi4 bu4 zu2 , bai4 shi4 you3 yu2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 43,758
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record成事不足,敗事有餘 成事不足,败事有余 [cheng2 shi4 bu4 zu2 , bai4 shi4 you3 yu2] /unable to accomplish anything but liable to spoil everything (idiom)/unable to do anything right/never make, but always mar/