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好汉不吃眼前亏

hǎo hàn bù chī yǎn qián kuīdictionary entry
DEFINITION CC-CEDICT
a wise man knows better than to fight when the odds are against him (idiom)
Sources & editorial notes

Reference definitions: CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source release 2026-10-27T01:55:52Z. Imported 2026-10-27. Definition wording and meaning order are retained. Recognized pronunciation references are displayed with tone marks; the original source record is available below.

Source record: cd-4fe27c67fa185fad. Source SHA-256: bbc4b27f26bee1a262f4d7939667a040c7857c7fc0200a2fa7a86d3352a09eae.

Original source entry:

好漢不吃眼前虧 好汉不吃眼前亏 [hao3 han4 bu4 chi1 yan3 qian2 kui1] /a wise man knows better than to fight when the odds are against him (idiom)/

Reference definitions and teaching material have separate provenance.

Reference information

The definitions above are from CC-CEDICT. Examples and usage notes are available on selected entries.

Character information

View the individual characters. Their meanings do not necessarily explain the meaning of the whole word.

Other forms in these source records: 好漢不吃眼前虧

  • 好
    hǎo

    good / appropriate / proper / all right! / (before a verb) easy to / (before a verb) good to / (before an adjective for exclamatory effect) so / (verb complement indicating completion) / (of two people) close / on intimate terms / (after a form of address) hello

    hào

    to be fond of / to have a tendency to / to be prone to

  • 汉
    hàn

    man

    Hàn

    Han ethnic group / Chinese (language) / the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD)

  • 不
    bù

    no / not so / (bound form) not / un-

  • 吃
    chī

    to eat / to consume / to eat at (a cafeteria etc) / to eradicate / to destroy / to absorb / to suffer (shock, injury, defeat etc)

  • 眼
    yǎn

    eye (CL:隻|只[zhī],雙|双[shuāng]) / (often used with 一[yī]) a look / a glance / small hole / (bound form) salient point / classifier for wells, cave-dwellings etc

  • 前
    qián

    front / forward / ahead / first / top (followed by a number) / future / ago / before / BC (e.g. 前293年) / former / formerly

  • 亏
    kuī

    to lose (money) / to have a deficit / to be deficient / to treat unfairly / luckily / fortunately / thanks to / (used to introduce an ironic remark about sb who has fallen short of expectations)

Reference definitions from CC-CEDICT.