措手不及 — Chinese idiom
措手不及
cuò shǒu bù jí
Meaning
- no time to deal with it ; caught unprepared
Character by character
- 措cuòto arrange; to execute on; to manage
- 手shǒuhand
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 及jíto extend; to reach; and; in time
Idioms sharing a character
- 不知所措 bù zhī suǒ cuò
- 张皇失措 zhāng huáng shī cuò
- 手足无措 shǒu zú wú cuò
- 措置裕如 cuò zhì yù rú
- 茫然失措 máng rán shī cuò
- 惊慌失措 jīng huāng shī cuò
- 七手八脚 qī shǒu bā jiǎo
- 上下其手 shàng xià qí shǒu
- 假手于人 jiǎ shǒu yú rén
- 两手空空 liǎng shǒu kōng kōng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.