先发制人 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to gain the initiative by striking first; to preempt

Character by character

• 先xiānfirst, former, previous
• 发fāto issue, to dispatch, to send out; hair
• 制zhìsystem; to establish; to manufacture; to overpower
• 人rénman, person; people

Idioms sharing a character

• 一马当先 yī mǎ dāng xiān
• 先来后到 xiān lái hòu dào
• 先入为主 xiān rù wéi zhǔ
• 先斩后奏 xiān zhǎn hòu zòu
• 先睹为快 xiān dǔ wéi kuài
• 先礼后兵 xiān lǐ hòu bīng
• 捷足先登 jié zú xiān dēng
• 敢为人先 gǎn wéi rén xiān
• 未卜先知 wèi bǔ xiān zhī
• 溘先朝露 kè xiān zhāo lù

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