前功尽弃 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to waste all one's previous efforts
• all that has been achieved goes down the drain

Character by character

• 前qiánin front, forward; former, preceding
• 功gōngachievement, good work; merit; service
• 尽jìnto exhaust, to use up, to deplete
• 弃qìto abandon, to discard, to reject; to desert; to f

Idioms sharing a character

• 一往无前 yī wǎng wú qián
• 一雪前耻 yī xuě qián chǐ
• 不计前嫌 bù jì qián xián
• 不顾前后 bù gù qián hòu
• 停滞不前 tíng zhì bù qián
• 光前裕后 guāng qián yù hòu
• 冰释前嫌 bīng shì qián xián
• 前世姻缘 qián shì yīn yuán
• 前仆后继 qián pū hòu jì
• 前倨后恭 qián jù hòu gōng

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