lit. to punish a little to prevent a lot (idiom); to criticize former mistakes firmly to prevent large scale repetition
trad. 小懲大誡
Also written 小懲大誡【xiǎo chéng dà jiè】
Characters in this word
4小
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
small, tiny, few, young
- Pinyin
- xiǎo
- Strokes
- 3
- Frequency
- 245 of 2500
惩
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
to punish, to reprimand, to warn
- Pinyin
- chéng
- Traditional
- 懲
- Strokes
- 12
- Frequency
- 22627 of 2500
大
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
big; large; great, older (than another person), eldest (as in 大姐[da4 jie3]), greatly; freely; fully, (dialect) father, (dialect) uncle (father's brother)
- Pinyin
- dà
- Strokes
- 3
- Frequency
- 199 of 2500
诫
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
commandment, to prohibit
- Pinyin
- jiè
- Traditional
- 誡
- Strokes
- 9
- Frequency
- 48699 of 2500