lit. once said, a team of horses cannot unsay it (idiom); a promise must be kept
trad. 一言既出，駟馬難追
Also written 一言既出，駟馬難追【yī yán jì chū , sì mǎ nán zhuī】
Characters in this word
8一
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
one, single, a (article), as soon as, entire; whole; all; throughout, "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1), also pr. [yao1] for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit
- Pinyin
- yī
- Strokes
- 1
- Frequency
- 158 of 2500
言
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
words, speech, to say, to talk
- Pinyin
- yán
- Strokes
- 7
- Frequency
- 6821 of 2500
既
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
already, since, both... (and...)
- Pinyin
- jì
- Strokes
- 9
- Frequency
- 2471 of 2500
出
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
to go out; to come out, to arise; to occur, to produce; to yield, to go beyond; to exceed, (used after a verb to indicate an outward direction or a positive result), classifier for dramas, plays, operas etc
- Pinyin
- chū
- Strokes
- 5
- Frequency
- 328 of 2500
驷
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
team of 4 horses
- Pinyin
- sì
- Traditional
- 駟
- Strokes
- 8
- Frequency
- 36119 of 2500
马
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
surname Ma, abbr. for Malaysia 馬來西亞|马来西亚[Ma3 lai2 xi1 ya4]
- Pinyin
- Mǎ
- Traditional
- 馬
- Strokes
- 3
- Frequency
- 1030 of 2500
难
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
difficult (to...), problem, difficulty, difficult, not good
- Pinyin
- nán
- Traditional
- 難
- Strokes
- 10
- Frequency
- 1327 of 2500
追
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
to sculpt, to carve, musical instrument (old)
- Pinyin
- duī
- Strokes
- 9
- Frequency
- 1291 of 2500