北叟失马 — Chinese idiom
北叟失马
běi sǒu shī mǎ
Traditional: 北叟失馬
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.