笨鸟先飞 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. the clumsy bird flies early ; fig. to work hard to compensate for one's limited abilities

Character by character

• 笨bènstupid, foolish, dull, awkward
• 鸟niǎobird
• 先xiānfirst, former, previous
• 飞fēito fly, to dart; high

Idioms sharing a character

• 笨头笨脑 bèn tóu bèn nǎo
• 一石二鸟 yī shí èr niǎo
• 作鸟兽散 zuò niǎo shòu sàn
• 如鸟兽散 rú niǎo shòu sàn
• 小鸟依人 xiǎo niǎo yī rén
• 乌鸟私情 wū niǎo sī qíng
• 笼鸟槛猿 lóng niǎo jiàn yuán
• 惊弓之鸟 jīng gōng zhī niǎo
• 鸟枪换炮 niǎo qiāng huàn pào
• 鸟尽弓藏 niǎo jìn gōng cáng

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