争分夺秒 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. fight minutes, snatch seconds ; a race against time
• making every second count

Character by character

• 争zhēngto dispute, to fight, to contend, to strive
• 分fēnto divide, to allocate; fraction; small unit of ti
• 夺duóto rob, to snatch, to take by force
• 秒miǎoa second; a corn kernel; measure word for time

Idioms sharing a character

• 你争我夺 nǐ zhēng wǒ duó
• 两虎相争 liǎng hǔ xiāng zhēng
• 分秒必争 fēn miǎo bì zhēng
• 力争上游 lì zhēng shàng yóu
• 只争朝夕 zhǐ zhēng zhāo xī
• 明争暗斗 míng zhēng àn dòu
• 争先恐后 zhēng xiān kǒng hòu
• 争名夺利 zhēng míng duó lì
• 争斤论两 zhēng jīn lùn liǎng
• 争权夺利 zhēng quán duó lì

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