外强中干 — Chinese idiom
外强中干
wài qiáng zhōng gān
Traditional: 外強中乾
Meaning
- strong in appearance but weak in reality
Character by character
- 外wàiout, outside, external; foreign; in addition
- 强qiángstrong, powerful, energetic
- 中zhōngcentral; center, middle; amidst; to hit (target),
- 干gānarid, dry; to oppose; to offend; to invade
Idioms sharing a character
- 九霄云外 jiǔ xiāo yún wài
- 付之度外 fù zhī dù wài
- 内忧外困 nèi yōu wài kùn
- 内忧外患 nèi yōu wài huàn
- 出乎意外 chū hū yì wài
- 出人意外 chū rén yì wài
- 古今中外 gǔ jīn zhōng wài
- 吃里扒外 chī lǐ pá wài
- 喜出望外 xǐ chū wàng wài
- 外圆内方 wài yuán nèi fāng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.