生不逢时 — Chinese idiom
生不逢时
shēng bù féng shí
Traditional: 生不逢時
Meaning
- born at the wrong time ; unlucky (esp. to complain about one's fate)
- born under an unlucky star
- ahead of his time
Character by character
- 生shēnglife, lifetime; birth; growth
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 逢féngto happen to meet; chance meeting, coincidence
- 时shítime, season; period, era, age
Idioms sharing a character
- 一生一世 yī shēng yī shì
- 一线生机 yī xiàn shēng jī
- 七窍生烟 qī qiào shēng yān
- 三生有幸 sān shēng yǒu xìng
- 九死一生 jiǔ sǐ yī shēng
- 了无生趣 liǎo wú shēng qù
- 人生如梦 rén shēng rú mèng
- 人生朝露 rén shēng zhāo lù
- 再生父母 zài shēng fù mǔ
- 出生入死 chū shēng rù sǐ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.