进退两难 — Chinese idiom
进退两难
jìn tuì liǎng nán
Traditional: 進退兩難
Meaning
- no room to advance or to retreat ; without any way out of a dilemma
- trapped
- in an impossible situation
Character by character
- 进jìnto advance, to make progress; to come in, to enter
- 退tuìto retreat, to step back, to withdraw
- 两liǎngtwo, both, pair, couple; ounce
- 难nánhard, difficult, arduous; unable
Idioms sharing a character
- 不知进退 bù zhī jìn tuì
- 加官进位 jiā guān jìn wèi
- 加官进爵 jiā guān jìn jué
- 加官进禄 jiā guān jìn lù
- 得寸进尺 dé cùn jìn chǐ
- 循序渐进 xún xù jiàn jìn
- 日进斗金 rì jìn dǒu jīn
- 油盐不进 yóu yán bù jìn
- 与日俱进 yǔ rì jù jìn
- 进退不得 jìn tuì bù dé
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.