得寸进尺 — Chinese idiom
得寸进尺
dé cùn jìn chǐ
Traditional: 得寸進尺
Meaning
- lit. win an inch, want a foot ; fig. not satisfied with small gains
- give him an inch, and he'll want a mile
Character by character
- 得déto obtain, to get, to acquire; suitable, proper; r
- 寸cùninch; small, tiny
- 进jìnto advance, to make progress; to come in, to enter
- 尺chǐruler, tape-measure; unit of length, about 1 ft.
Idioms sharing a character
- 一举两得 yī jǔ liǎng dé
- 优游自得 yōu yóu zì dé
- 动辄得咎 dòng zhé dé jiù
- 势在必得 shì zài bì dé
- 各得其所 gè dé qí suǒ
- 咎有应得 jiù yǒu yīng dé
- 哭笑不得 kū xiào bù dé
- 因祸得福 yīn huò dé fú
- 失而复得 shī ér fù dé
- 如鱼得水 rú yú dé shuǐ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.