咫尺天涯 — Chinese idiom
咫尺天涯
zhǐ chǐ tiān yá
Meaning
- so close, yet worlds apart
Character by character
- 咫zhǐunit of length used during the Zhou dynasty
- 尺chǐruler, tape-measure; unit of length, about 1 ft.
- 天tiānsky, heaven; god, celestial
- 涯yáborder, horizon; river bank, shore
Idioms sharing a character
- 近在咫尺 jìn zài zhǐ chǐ
- 垂涎三尺 chuí xián sān chǐ
- 得寸进尺 dé cùn jìn chǐ
- 一柱擎天 yī zhù qíng tiān
- 一步登天 yī bù dēng tiān
- 三天两头 sān tiān liǎng tóu
- 上天入地 shàng tiān rù dì
- 不共戴天 bù gòng dài tiān
- 不啻天渊 bù chì tiān yuān
- 不见天日 bù jiàn tiān rì
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.