大意失荆州
dà​yi​shī​jīng​zhōu

to suffer a major setback due to carelessness

  • created sense approved 大意失荆州/大意失荊州 · dà​yi​shī​jīng​zhōu · to suffer a major setback due to carelessness — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    大意失荆州 / 大意失荊州

    dà​yi​shī​jīng​zhōu

    to suffer a major setback due to carelessness

    to lose a critical position or suffer a major defeat because of negligence. This idiom refers to the historical event where the general [[关羽|關羽|guan1 yu3]] lost [[荆州|荊州|jing1 zhou1]] to his rivals during the Three Kingdoms period.

    大意 (literal) → 大意 · dà​yi · careless 失 (literal) → 失 · shī · to lose 荆州 (literal) → 荆州/荊州 · jīng​zhōu · Jing Province

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

    created sense