宁缺毋滥 — Chinese idiom
宁缺毋滥
nìng quē wú làn
Traditional: 寧缺毋濫
Meaning
- better to have nothing (than substandard choice) ; would prefer to go without than accept shoddy option
Character by character
- 宁nìngcalm, peaceful; healthy; rather; to prefer
- 缺quēto lack, to be short; vacancy, gap, deficit
- 毋wúnot; do not; surname
- 滥lànto flood, to overflow; excessive
Idioms sharing a character
- 宁死不屈 nìng sǐ bù qū
- 宁静致远 níng jìng zhì yuǎn
- 息事宁人 xī shì níng rén
- 鸡犬不宁 jī quǎn bù níng
- 抱残守缺 bào cán shǒu quē
- 拾遗补缺 shí yí bǔ quē
- 泛滥成灾 fàn làn chéng zāi
- 滥杀无辜 làn shā wú gū
- 滥竽充数 làn yú chōng shù
- 粗制滥造 cū zhì làn zào
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.