泼水难收 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• water once spilt cannot be retrieved ; irreversible change

Character by character

• 泼pōto pour, to splash, to sprinkle, to water
• 水shuǐwater, liquid, lotion, juice
• 难nánhard, difficult, arduous; unable
• 收shōuto collect, to gather, to harvest

Idioms sharing a character

• 瓢泼大雨 piáo pō dà yǔ
• 一清如水 yī qīng rú shuǐ
• 似水年华 sì shuǐ nián huá
• 出水芙蓉 chū shuǐ fú róng
• 如鱼得水 rú yú dé shuǐ
• 山明水秀 shān míng shuǐ xiù
• 山清水秀 shān qīng shuǐ xiù
• 山穷水尽 shān qióng shuǐ jìn
• 山长水远 shān cháng shuǐ yuǎn
• 山高水长 shān gāo shuǐ cháng

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.