北叟失马 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. the old man lost his horse, but it all turned out for the best
• fig. a blessing in disguise
• it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good

Character by character

• 北běinorth; northern; northward
• 叟sǒuold man; elder
• 失shīto lose; to make a mistake, to neglect
• 马mǎhorse; surname

Idioms sharing a character

• 南征北伐 nán zhēng běi fá
• 南征北战 nán zhēng běi zhàn
• 南征北讨 nán zhēng běi tǎo
• 南箕北斗 Nán jī Běi dǒu
• 南辕北辙 nán yuán běi zhé
• 喝西北风 hē xī běi fēng
• 大江南北 Dà jiāng nán běi
• 天南地北 tiān nán dì běi
• 泰山北斗 Tài shān Běi dǒu
• 童叟无欺 tóng sǒu wú qī

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.