内忧外困 — Chinese idiom
内忧外困
nèi yōu wài kùn
Traditional: 內憂外困
Meaning
- internal trouble and outside aggression ; in a mess both domestically and abroad
Character by character
- 内nèiinside
- 忧yōusad, grieving; melancholy, grief
- 外wàiout, outside, external; foreign; in addition
- 困kùnto surround; to besiege; surrounded, in distress;
Idioms sharing a character
- 内忧外患 nèi yōu wài huàn
- 外圆内方 wài yuán nèi fāng
- 外宽内忌 wài kuān nèi jì
- 攘外安内 rǎng wài ān nèi
- 色厉内荏 sè lì nèi rěn
- 锋芒内敛 fēng máng nèi liǎn
- 后顾之忧 hòu gù zhī yōu
- 忧心忡忡 yōu xīn chōng chōng
- 排忧解难 pái yōu jiě nàn
- 杞人之忧 Qǐ rén zhī yōu
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.