知难而退 — Chinese idiom
知难而退
zhī nán ér tuì
Traditional: 知難而退
Meaning
- (lit.) to sound out the difficulties and retreat to avoid defeat
- (fig.) to back out of an awkward situation; to get out on finding out what it's really like
Character by character
- 知zhīto know, to perceive, to comprehend
- 难nánhard, difficult, arduous; unable
- 而érand, and then, and yet; but
- 退tuìto retreat, to step back, to withdraw
Idioms sharing a character
- 一望而知 yī wàng ér zhī
- 一无所知 yī wú suǒ zhī
- 一知半解 yī zhī bàn jiě
- 一叶知秋 yī yè zhī qiū
- 不知丁董 bù zhī Dīng Dǒng
- 不知不觉 bù zhī bù jué
- 不知好歹 bù zhī hǎo dǎi
- 不知所以 bù zhī suǒ yǐ
- 不知所措 bù zhī suǒ cuò
- 不知所终 bù zhī suǒ zhōng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.