缩手缩脚 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• bound hand and foot ; constrained

Character by character

• 缩suōto withdraw, to shrink, to pull back; abbreviation
• 手shǒuhand
• 缩suōto withdraw, to shrink, to pull back; abbreviation
• 脚jiǎoleg, foot; foundation, base

Idioms sharing a character

• 畏缩不前 wèi suō bù qián
• 节衣缩食 jié yī suō shí
• 缩衣节食 suō yī jié shí
• 临阵退缩 lín zhèn tuì suō
• 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
• 大显身手 dà xiǎn shēn shǒu

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