饮鸩止渴 — Chinese idiom
饮鸩止渴
yǐn zhèn zhǐ kě
Traditional: 飲鴆止渴
Meaning
- lit. drinking poison in the hope of quenching one's thirst
- fig. a supposed remedy that only makes matters worse
Character by character
- 饮yǐnto swallow, to drink; a kind of drink
- 鸩zhèna bird resembling the secretary falcon
- 止zhǐto stop, to halt; to detain; to desist
- 渴kěthirsty, parched; to yearn, to pine for
Idioms sharing a character
- 一饮而尽 yī yǐn ér jìn
- 狂饮暴食 kuáng yǐn bào shí
- 饮恨吞声 yǐn hèn tūn shēng
- 饮水思源 yǐn shuǐ sī yuán
- 饮流怀源 yǐn liú huái yuán
- 令行禁止 lìng xíng jìn zhǐ
- 叹为观止 tàn wéi guān zhǐ
- 学无止境 xué wú zhǐ jìng
- 屡禁不止 lǚ jìn bù zhǐ
- 戛然而止 jiá rán ér zhǐ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.