来之不易 — Chinese idiom
来之不易
lái zhī bù yì
Traditional: 來之不易
Meaning
- hard to come by; not easily obtained
Character by character
- 来láito arrive, to come, to return; in the future, late
- 之zhīmarks preceding phrase as modifier of following ph
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 易yìto change; to exchange, to trade; simple, easy
Idioms sharing a character
- 人来人往 rén lái rén wǎng
- 来去无踪 lái qù wú zōng
- 来日方长 lái rì fāng cháng
- 来历不明 lái lì bù míng
- 来者不拒 lái zhě bù jù
- 来踪去迹 lái zōng qù jì
- 来鸿去燕 lái hóng qù yàn
- 来龙去脉 lái lóng qù mài
- 倾巢来犯 qīng cháo lái fàn
- 先来后到 xiān lái hòu dào
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.