尽 人 事，听 天 命

jìn rén shì , tīng tiān mìngdictionary entry

(idiom) to do one's best and leave the rest to fate / to do everything within one's power, then accept whatever happens

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-bffc6a1128f200a3. Source SHA-256: bbc4b27f26bee1a262f4d7939667a040c7857c7fc0200a2fa7a86d3352a09eae.

Original source entry:

盡人事，聽天命 尽人事，听天命 [jin4 ren2 shi4 , ting1 tian1 ming4] /(idiom) to do one's best and leave the rest to fate; to do everything within one's power, then accept whatever happens/

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: 盡人事，聽天命

尽
jǐn
to the greatest extent / (when used before a noun of location) furthest or extreme / to be within the limits of / to give priority to
jìn
to use up / to exhaust / to end / to finish / to the utmost / exhausted / finished / to the limit (of sth) / all / entirely
人
rén
person / people / CL:個|个[gè],位[wèi],名[míng]
事
shì
matter / thing / item / work / affair / CL:件[jiàn],樁|桩[zhuāng],回[huí]
听
yǐn
smile (archaic)
tīng
to listen to / to hear / to heed / to obey / a can (loanword from English "tin") / classifier for canned beverages / to let be / to allow (Taiwan pr. [tìng]) / (literary) to administer / to deal with (Taiwan pr. [tìng])
天
tiān
day / sky / heaven
命
mìng
life / fate / order or command / to assign a name, title etc

Reference definitions from CC-CEDICT.