饥不择食 — Chinese idiom
饥不择食
jī bù zé shí
Traditional: 飢不擇食
Meaning
- when hungry, you can't pick what you eat ; beggars can't be choosers
- When matters are urgent, don't spend time choosing alternatives.
Character by character
- 饥jīhungry, starving; hunger, famine
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 择zéto select, to choose
- 食shífood; to eat
Idioms sharing a character
- 啼饥号寒 tí jī háo hán
- 如饥似渴 rú jī sì kě
- 漏脯充饥 lòu fǔ chōng jī
- 画饼充饥 huà bǐng chōng jī
- 饥寒交迫 jī hán jiāo pò
- 饥肠辘辘 jī cháng lù lù
- 一丁不识 yī dīng bù shí
- 一尘不染 yī chén bù rǎn
- 一字不差 yī zì bù chà
- 一字不提 yī zì bù tí
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.