龙头蛇尾 — Chinese idiom
龙头蛇尾
lóng tóu shé wěi
Traditional: 龍頭蛇尾
Meaning
- lit. dragon's head, snake's tail ; fig. a strong start but weak finish
Character by character
- 龙lóngdragon; symbol of the emperor
- 头tóuhead; chief, boss; first, top
- 蛇shésnake
- 尾wěitail; extremity, end; back, rear
Idioms sharing a character
- 人中龙凤 rén zhōng lóng fèng
- 伏龙凤雏 fú lóng fèng chú
- 来龙去脉 lái lóng qù mài
- 大排长龙 dà pái cháng lóng
- 扳龙附凤 bān lóng fù fèng
- 望子成龙 wàng zǐ chéng lóng
- 活龙活现 huó lóng huó xiàn
- 生龙活虎 shēng lóng huó hǔ
- 画龙点睛 huà lóng diǎn jīng
- 盘龙卧虎 pán lóng wò hǔ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.