刻 鹄 类 鹜

kè hú lèi wùdictionary entry

to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom) / to fail utterly in trying to copy something / to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result

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-a521102008728f5a. Source SHA-256: bbc4b27f26bee1a262f4d7939667a040c7857c7fc0200a2fa7a86d3352a09eae.

Original source entry:

刻鵠類鶩 刻鹄类鹜 [ke4 hu2 lei4 wu4] /to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom)/to fail utterly in trying to copy something/to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result/

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: 刻鵠類鶩

刻
kè
quarter (hour) / moment / to carve / to engrave / to cut / oppressive / classifier for short time intervals
鹄
gǔ
center or bull's eye of an archery target (old) / goal / target
hú
swan
类
lèi
kind / type / class / category / (classifier) kind / type / (bound form) to resemble / to be similar to
鹜
wù
duck

Reference definitions from CC-CEDICT.