曲突徙薪 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. to bend the chimney and remove the firewood (to prevent fire)
• fig. to take preventive measures

Character by character

• 曲qūcrooked, bent; wrong, false
• 突tūsudden, abrupt, unexpected
• 徙xǐto move, to shift; to migrate
• 薪xīnfuel, firewood; salary

Idioms sharing a character

• 是非曲直 shì fēi qū zhí
• 曲终奏雅 qǔ zhōng zòu yǎ
• 曲肱而枕 qū gōng ér zhěn
• 曲里拐弯 qū lǐ guǎi wān
• 曲高和寡 qǔ gāo hè guǎ
• 异曲同工 yì qǔ tóng gōng
• 盘旋曲折 pán xuán qū zhé
• 迂回曲折 yū huí qū zhé
• 狼奔豕突 láng bēn shǐ tū
• 异军突起 yì jūn tū qǐ

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