功亏一篑 — Chinese idiom
功亏一篑
gōng kuī yī kuì
Traditional: 功虧一簣
Meaning
- lit. to ruin the enterprise for the sake of one basketful
- to fail through lack of a final effort
- to spoil the ship for a ha'penny worth of tar
Character by character
- 功gōngachievement, good work; merit; service
- 亏kuīto lose, to fail; loss, damages; deficient
- 一yīone; a, an; alone
- 篑kuìa bamboo basket for carrying soil
Idioms sharing a character
- 事倍功半 shì bèi gōng bàn
- 事半功倍 shì bàn gōng bèi
- 前功尽弃 qián gōng jìn qì
- 功不可没 gōng bù kě mò
- 功名利禄 gōng míng lì lù
- 功完行满 gōng wán xíng mǎn
- 功德圆满 gōng dé yuán mǎn
- 功德无量 gōng dé wú liàng
- 功成不居 gōng chéng bù jū
- 功成名就 gōng chéng míng jiù
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.