覆水难收 — Chinese idiom
覆水难收
fù shuǐ nán shōu
Traditional: 覆水難收
Meaning
- spilt water is difficult to retrieve
- it's no use crying over spilt milk
- what's done is done and can't be reversed
- the damage is done
- once divorced, there's no reuniting
Character by character
- 覆fùto cover; to overturn; to repeat; to reply
- 水shuǐwater, liquid, lotion, juice
- 难nánhard, difficult, arduous; unable
- 收shōuto collect, to gather, to harvest
Idioms sharing a character
- 全军覆没 quán jūn fù mò
- 天翻地覆 tiān fān dì fù
- 翻天覆地 fān tiān fù dì
- 翻云覆雨 fān yún fù yǔ
- 载舟覆舟 zài zhōu fù zhōu
- 重蹈覆辙 chóng dǎo fù zhé
- 一清如水 yī qīng rú shuǐ
- 似水年华 sì shuǐ nián huá
- 出水芙蓉 chū shuǐ fú róng
- 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.