此消彼长 — Chinese idiom
此消彼长
cǐ xiāo bǐ zhǎng
Traditional: 此消彼長
Meaning
- one declines while the other flourishes; one loses out when the other one gains (as in a trade-off or a zero-sum game)
Character by character
- 此cǐthis, these; in this case, then
- 消xiāonews, rumors; to die out, to melt away, to vanish
- 彼bǐthat, those, the other
- 长zhǎnglong, lasting; to excel in
Idioms sharing a character
- 不分彼此 bù fēn bǐ cǐ
- 不虚此行 bù xū cǐ xíng
- 不过如此 bù guò rú cǐ
- 但愿如此 dàn yuàn rú cǐ
- 仅此而已 jǐn cǐ ér yǐ
- 原来如此 yuán lái rú cǐ
- 多此一举 duō cǐ yī jǔ
- 彼此彼此 bǐ cǐ bǐ cǐ
- 志不在此 zhì bù zài cǐ
- 乐此不疲 lè cǐ bù pí
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.