刻舟求剑 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. a notch on the side of a boat to locate a sword dropped overboard ; fig. an action made pointless by changed circumstances

Character by character

• 刻kèto carve, to engrave; a quarter hour; a moment
• 舟zhōuboat, ship
• 求qiúto seek; to request, to demand; to beseech, to beg
• 剑jiànsword, dagger, saber

Idioms sharing a character

• 一刻千金 yī kè qiān jīn
• 一时半刻 yī shí bàn kè
• 刻苦耐劳 kè kǔ nài láo
• 刻薄寡恩 kè bó guǎ ēn
• 刻骨相思 kè gǔ xiāng sī
• 刻骨铭心 kè gǔ míng xīn
• 刻鹄类鹜 kè hú lèi wù
• 无时无刻 wú shí wú kè
• 精雕细刻 jīng diāo xì kè
• 铭心刻骨 míng xīn kè gǔ

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