后车之鉴 — Chinese idiom
后车之鉴
hòu chē zhī jiàn
Traditional: 後車之鑒
Meaning
- lit. warning to the following cart ; don't follow the track of an overturned cart
- fig. draw lesson from the failure of one's predecessor
- learn from past mistake
- once bitten twice shy
Character by character
- 后hòuafter; behind, rear; descendants
- 车chēcart, vehicle; to move in a cart
- 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
- 鉴jiànmirror, looking glass; to reflect
Idioms sharing a character
- 不甘人后 bù gān rén hòu
- 不甘后人 bù gān hòu rén
- 不顾前后 bù gù qián hòu
- 事后聪明 shì hòu cōng ming
- 先来后到 xiān lái hòu dào
- 先斩后奏 xiān zhǎn hòu zòu
- 先礼后兵 xiān lǐ hòu bīng
- 光前裕后 guāng qián yù hòu
- 前仆后继 qián pū hòu jì
- 前倨后恭 qián jù hòu gōng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.