偷工减料 — Chinese idiom
偷工减料
tōu gōng jiǎn liào
Traditional: 偷工減料
Meaning
- to skimp on the job and stint on materials
- jerry-building
- sloppy work
Character by character
- 偷tōuto steal; burglar, thief
- 工gōnglabor, work; laborer, worker
- 减jiǎnto decrease, to subtract, to diminish
- 料liàoingredients, materials; to conjecture, to guess
Idioms sharing a character
- 不偷不抢 bù tōu bù qiǎng
- 偷偷摸摸 tōu tōu mō mō
- 偷天换日 tōu tiān huàn rì
- 偷梁换柱 tōu liáng huàn zhù
- 偷鸡摸狗 tōu jī mō gǒu
- 偷香窃玉 tōu xiāng qiè yù
- 忍辱偷生 rěn rǔ tōu shēng
- 忙里偷闲 máng lǐ tōu xián
- 苟且偷安 gǒu qiě tōu ān
- 苟且偷生 gǒu qiě tōu shēng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.