进退为难 — Chinese idiom

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
• 为wéito do, to act; to handle, to govern; to be
• 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.