刻舟求剑 — Chinese idiom
刻舟求剑
kè zhōu qiú jiàn
Traditional: 刻舟求劍
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.