琴棋书画 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• the four arts of the Chinese scholar (guqin, Go, calligraphy and painting); (by extension) the accomplishments of a well-educated person

Character by character

• 琴qínChinese lute or guitar, string instrument
• 棋qíchess; any strategy game
• 书shūbook, letter, document; writing
• 画huàpicture, painting, drawing; to draw

Idioms sharing a character

• 一琴一鹤 yī qín yī hè
• 人琴俱亡 rén qín jù wáng
• 对牛弹琴 duì niú tán qín
• 琴剑飘零 qín jiàn piāo líng
• 星罗棋布 xīng luó qí bù
• 棋高一着 qí gāo yī zhāo
• 举棋不定 jǔ qí bù dìng
• 仰屋著书 yǎng wū zhù shū
• 折节读书 zhé jié dú shū
• 文弱书生 wén ruò shū shēng

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