卧薪尝胆 — Chinese idiom
卧薪尝胆
wò xīn cháng dǎn
Traditional: 臥薪嘗膽
Meaning
- (lit.) to sleep on brushwood and taste gall (like King Goujian of Yue 勾践 (Gōu jiàn), in order to recall one's humiliations)
- (fig.) to maintain one's resolve for revenge
Character by character
- 卧wòto crouch; to lie down
- 薪xīnfuel, firewood; salary
- 尝chángto taste; to experience, to experiment with
- 胆dǎngallbladder; gall, guts, courage
Idioms sharing a character
- 盘龙卧虎 pán lóng wò hǔ
- 卧虎藏龙 wò hǔ cáng lóng
- 藏龙卧虎 cáng lóng wò hǔ
- 食荼卧棘 shí tú wò jí
- 厝火积薪 cuò huǒ jī xīn
- 抱薪救火 bào xīn jiù huǒ
- 曲突徙薪 qū tū xǐ xīn
- 杯水车薪 bēi shuǐ chē xīn
- 薪火相传 xīn huǒ xiāng chuán
- 备尝辛苦 bèi cháng xīn kǔ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.