一事无成 — Chinese idiom
一事无成
yī shì wú chéng
Traditional: 一事無成
Meaning
- to have achieved nothing; to be a total failure; to get nowhere
Character by character
- 一yīone; a, an; alone
- 事shìaffair, matter, business; to serve; accident, inci
- 无wúno, not; lacking, -less
- 成chéngto accomplish; to become; to complete, to finish;
Idioms sharing a character
- 一丁不识 yī dīng bù shí
- 一丘之貉 yī qiū zhī hé
- 一之为甚 yī zhī wéi shèn
- 一干二净 yī gān èr jìng
- 一了百了 yī liǎo bǎi liǎo
- 一五一十 yī wǔ yī shí
- 一以贯之 yī yǐ guàn zhī
- 一元复始 yī yuán fù shǐ
- 一刀两断 yī dāo liǎng duàn
- 一分一毫 yī fēn yī háo
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.