jiǎn le zhī ma diū le xī guā

Traditional: 撿了芝麻丟了西瓜

捡了芝麻丢了西瓜 (jiǎn le zhī ma diū le xī guā) is a Chinese word meaning “to let go of the big prize while grabbing at trifles (idiom)”.

Meanings

  1. 1to let go of the big prize while grabbing at trifles (idiom)

Characters in 捡了芝麻丢了西瓜

捡jiǎn · to pick up; to collect; to gather了le · (completed action marker)芝zhī · Zoysia pungens麻má · hemp (variant of 麻[ma2])丢diū · to lose了le · (completed action marker)西xī · west瓜guā · melon; gourd; squash

Related words

了(completed action marker)了to finish了(of eyes) bright了unofficial variant of 瞭[liao4]东西east and west东西thing为了for; for the purpose of; in order to了解to understand了解to understand麻烦trouble; inconvenience极了extremely除了apart from; besides; in addition to (used to exclude, as in 除了他，誰也沒來|除了他，谁也没来[chu2 le5 ta1 , shei2 ye3 mei2 lai2] "apart from him, nobody came", or to include, as in 除了英語，他也會法語|除了英语，他也会法语[chu2 le5 Ying1 yu3 , ta1 ye3 hui4 Fa3 yu3] "in addition to English, he also knows French")

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