去芜存菁 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. to get rid of the weeds and keep the flowers
• to separate the wheat from the chaff

Character by character

• 去qùto go away, to leave, to depart
• 芜wúweeds; overgrowth
• 存cúnto exist; to survive, to maintain; to keep, to sto
• 菁jīngturnip; a flower of the leek family

Idioms sharing a character

• 人去楼空 rén qù lóu kōng
• 来去无踪 lái qù wú zōng
• 来踪去迹 lái zōng qù jì
• 来鸿去燕 lái hóng qù yàn
• 来龙去脉 lái lóng qù mài
• 呼来喝去 hū lái hè qù
• 思来想去 sī lái xiǎng qù
• 拂袖而去 fú xiù ér qù
• 推来推去 tuī lái tuī qù
• 有去无回 yǒu qù wú huí

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