事不过三 — Chinese idiom
事不过三
shì bù guò sān
Traditional: 事不過三
Meaning
- a thing should not be attempted more than three times; don't repeat the same mistake again and again
- bad things don't happen more than three times
Character by character
- 事shìaffair, matter, business; to serve; accident, inci
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 过guòpass; to go across, to pass through
- 三sānthree
Idioms sharing a character
- 一事无成 yī shì wú chéng
- 不明事理 bù míng shì lǐ
- 事不关己 shì bù guān jǐ
- 事倍功半 shì bèi gōng bàn
- 事到临头 shì dào lín tóu
- 事半功倍 shì bàn gōng bèi
- 事危累卵 shì wēi lěi luǎn
- 事在人为 shì zài rén wéi
- 事后聪明 shì hòu cōng ming
- 事怕行家 shì pà háng jiā
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.