短中抽长 — Chinese idiom
短中抽长
duǎn zhōng chōu cháng
Traditional: 短中抽長
Meaning
- to make the best of a bad job
- to make the best use of limited resources
Character by character
- 短duǎnbrief, short; deficient, lacking
- 中zhōngcentral; center, middle; amidst; to hit (target),
- 抽chōuto draw out, to pull out; to sprout
- 长chánglong, lasting; to excel in
Idioms sharing a character
- 一长一短 yī cháng yī duǎn
- 截长补短 jié cháng bǔ duǎn
- 扬长避短 yáng cháng bì duǎn
- 残年短景 cán nián duǎn jǐng
- 争长论短 zhēng cháng lùn duǎn
- 短兵相接 duǎn bīng xiāng jiē
- 短小精悍 duǎn xiǎo jīng hàn
- 纸短情长 zhǐ duǎn qíng cháng
- 蜚短流长 fēi duǎn liú cháng
- 说长道短 shuō cháng dào duǎn
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.