束手无策 — Chinese idiom
束手无策
shù shǒu wú cè
Traditional: 束手無策
Meaning
- lit. to have one's hands bound and be unable to do anything about it ; fig. helpless in the face of a crisis
Character by character
- 束shùto bind, to control, to restrain; bale
- 手shǒuhand
- 无wúno, not; lacking, -less
- 策cèto urge, to whip; method, plan, policy
Idioms sharing a character
- 束手就擒 shù shǒu jiù qín
- 束手待毙 shù shǒu dài bì
- 束手束脚 shù shǒu shù jiǎo
- 案兵束甲 àn bīng shù jiǎ
- 无拘无束 wú jū wú shù
- 七手八脚 qī shǒu bā jiǎo
- 上下其手 shàng xià qí shǒu
- 假手于人 jiǎ shǒu yú rén
- 两手空空 liǎng shǒu kōng kōng
- 大手大脚 dà shǒu dà jiǎo
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.