忙里偷闲 — Chinese idiom
忙里偷闲
máng lǐ tōu xián
Traditional: 忙裡偷閑
Meaning
- to snatch a moment of leisure in the midst of a busy schedule
Character by character
- 忙mángbusy, hurried, pressed for time
- 里lǐunit of distance equal to 0.5km; village; lane
- 偷tōuto steal; burglar, thief
- 闲xiánfence, guard; to defend; idle time
Idioms sharing a character
- 不慌不忙 bù huāng bù máng
- 忙中有失 máng zhōng yǒu shī
- 忙中有错 máng zhōng yǒu cuò
- 手忙脚乱 shǒu máng jiǎo luàn
- 一日千里 yī rì qiān lǐ
- 千里迢迢 qiān lǐ tiáo tiáo
- 千里鹅毛 qiān lǐ é máo
- 吃里扒外 chī lǐ pá wài
- 字里行间 zì lǐ háng jiān
- 心里有数 xīn lǐ yǒu shù
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.