时不我待 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• time and tide wait for no man

Character by character

• 时shítime, season; period, era, age
• 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
• 我wǒI, me, my; our, us
• 待dàito entertain, to receive, to treat; to delay, to w

Idioms sharing a character

• 一时半刻 yī shí bàn kè
• 不识时务 bù shí shí wù
• 不识时变 bù shí shí biàn
• 俗随时变 sú suí shí biàn
• 切中时弊 qiè zhòng shí bì
• 切中时病 qiè zhòng shí bìng
• 及时行乐 jí shí xíng lè
• 名噪一时 míng zào yī shí
• 因时制宜 yīn shí zhì yí
• 应天顺时 yìng tiān shùn shí

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