苟延残喘 — Chinese idiom
苟延残喘
gǒu yán cán chuǎn
Traditional: 苟延殘喘
Meaning
- to struggle on whilst at death's door
Character by character
- 苟gǒucareless, frivolous, illicit; but, if only
- 延yánto defer, to delay, to postpone; to extend, to pro
- 残cánto injure, to ruin, to spoil; cruel, oppressive, s
- 喘chuǎnto pant, to gasp, to breathe heavily
Idioms sharing a character
- 一笔不苟 yī bǐ bù gǒu
- 一丝不苟 yī sī bù gǒu
- 不敢苟同 bù gǎn gǒu tóng
- 苟且偷安 gǒu qiě tōu ān
- 苟且偷生 gǒu qiě tōu shēng
- 蝇营狗苟 yíng yíng gǒu gǒu
- 延年益寿 yán nián yì shòu
- 延颈企踵 yán jǐng qǐ zhǒng
- 抱残守缺 bào cán shǒu quē
- 收残缀轶 shōu cán zhuì yì
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.