偷鸡不成蚀把米
tōu​jī​bù​chéng​shí​bǎ​mǐ

to suffer a loss instead of making a gain

  • created sense approved 偷鸡不成蚀把米/偷雞不成蝕把米 · tōu​jī​bù​chéng​shí​bǎ​mǐ · to suffer a loss instead of making a gain — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    偷鸡不成蚀把米 / 偷雞不成蝕把米

    tōu​jī​bù​chéng​shí​bǎ​mǐ

    to suffer a loss instead of making a gain

    literally meaning to try to steal a chicken only to end up losing the rice used to lure it; used to describe trying to gain an advantage but ending up worse off

    偷 (literal) → 偷 · tōu · to steal 鸡 (literal) → 鸡/雞 · jī · chicken 不成 (literal) → 不成 · bù​chéng · to fail 蚀 (literal) → 蚀/蝕 · shí · to lose 把 (literal) → 把 · bǎ · [classifier] 米 (literal) → 米 · mǐ · rice

    Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

    created sense