pui4 liu5 fu1 jan4 jau6 zit3 bing1賠了夫人又折兵赔了夫人又折兵
Definition
To suffer a double loss instead of making a gain; to try to cheat or gain an advantage and end up losing even more.
How it's used
This idiom originates from the classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and is used to describe a situation where an attempt to gain an advantage backfires, resulting in a net loss. It carries a strong sense of irony and regret, often used when someone tries to be clever or greedy but ends up worse off than before. While it is a formal idiom, it is frequently used in casual speech to emphasize the severity of a failed plan.
Related words
Common mistake
Learners often mistake this for a simple way to say 'I lost money', but it specifically requires a context where a failed scheme or an attempt to gain something caused the loss. It is not used for simple accidents or bad luck where no prior attempt to gain an advantage was involved.
Grammar color guide
Grammar guides
- In 30 secondsThe whole language at a glance. No tenses, no plurals, six tones, sentence particles. Read this before you dive into any specific topic.
- ParticlesSentence particles add tone, emotion, and nuance. Learn the most common particles in Cantonese and how to use them.
- Possession (嘅)How to say my, your, and his, and how to link a describing word to a noun, all with the little word 嘅 (ge3).
