悬崖勒马 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. to rein in the horse at the edge of the precipice
• fig. to act in the nick of time

Character by character

• 悬xuánto hang, to hoist, to suspend; hung
• 崖yácliff, precipice; precipitous
• 勒lèto strangle; to tighten
• 马mǎhorse; surname

Idioms sharing a character

• 倒悬之危 dào xuán zhī wēi
• 倒悬之急 dào xuán zhī jí
• 倒悬之苦 dào xuán zhī kǔ
• 口若悬河 kǒu ruò xuán hé
• 天地悬隔 tiān dì xuán gé
• 悬崖峭壁 xuán yá qiào bì
• 悬梁刺股 xuán liáng cì gǔ
• 悬而未决 xuán ér wèi jué
• 明镜高悬 míng jìng gāo xuán
• 众寡悬殊 zhòng guǎ xuán shū

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