南辕北辙 — Chinese idiom
南辕北辙
nán yuán běi zhé
Traditional: 南轅北轍
Meaning
- to act in a way that defeats one's purpose
Character by character
- 南nánsouth; southern; southward
- 辕yuánaxle; magistrate's office; surname
- 北běinorth; northern; northward
- 辙zhétrack, rut; stuck in a rut
Idioms sharing a character
- 南征北伐 nán zhēng běi fá
- 南征北战 nán zhēng běi zhàn
- 南征北讨 nán zhēng běi tǎo
- 南箕北斗 Nán jī Běi dǒu
- 寿比南山 shòu bǐ Nán Shān
- 大江南北 Dà jiāng nán běi
- 天南地北 tiān nán dì běi
- 终南捷径 Zhōng nán jié jìng
- 北叟失马 běi sǒu shī mǎ
- 喝西北风 hē xī běi fēng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.