悬崖勒马 — Chinese idiom
悬崖勒马
xuán yá lè mǎ
Traditional: 懸崖勒馬
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.