涸辙之鲋 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. a fish in a dried-out rut
• fig. a person in dire straits

Character by character

• 涸hétired, exhausted; dried up
• 辙zhétrack, rut; stuck in a rut
• 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
• 鲋fùcarp; Carassicus auratus

Idioms sharing a character

• 濡沫涸辙 rú mò hé zhé
• 一改故辙 yī gǎi gù zhé
• 南辕北辙 nán yuán běi zhé
• 凭轼结辙 píng shì jié zhé
• 改弦易辙 gǎi xián yì zhé
• 重蹈覆辙 chóng dǎo fù zhé
• 一丘之貉 yī qiū zhī hé
• 一之为甚 yī zhī wéi shèn
• 一以贯之 yī yǐ guàn zhī
• 一孔之见 yī kǒng zhī jiàn

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.