有头无尾 — Chinese idiom
有头无尾
yǒu tóu wú wěi
Traditional: 有頭無尾
Meaning
- to fail to finish off what one started
Character by character
- 有yǒuto have, to own, to possess; to exist
- 头tóuhead; chief, boss; first, top
- 无wúno, not; lacking, -less
- 尾wěitail; extremity, end; back, rear
Idioms sharing a character
- 一无所有 yī wú suǒ yǒu
- 三生有幸 sān shēng yǒu xìng
- 互通有无 hù tōng yǒu wú
- 井井有条 jǐng jǐng yǒu tiáo
- 井然有序 jǐng rán yǒu xù
- 别有用心 bié yǒu yòng xīn
- 前所未有 qián suǒ wèi yǒu
- 化为乌有 huà wéi wū yǒu
- 另有企图 lìng yǒu qǐ tú
- 各有千秋 gè yǒu qiān qiū
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.