A small hole not plugged will make you suffer a big hole (idiom); a stitch in time saves nine
trad. 小洞不補大洞吃苦
Also written 小洞不補大洞吃苦【xiǎo dòng bù bǔ dà dòng chī kǔ】
Characters in this word
7小
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
small, tiny, few, young
- Pinyin
- xiǎo
- Strokes
- 3
- Frequency
- 245 of 2500
洞
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
cave, hole, zero (unambiguous spoken form when spelling out numbers), CL:個|个[ge4]
- Pinyin
- dòng
- Strokes
- 9
- Frequency
- 2515 of 2500
不
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
no; not so, (bound form) not; un-
- Pinyin
- bù
- Strokes
- 4
- Frequency
- 9 of 2500
补
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
to repair, to patch, to mend, to make up for, to fill (a vacancy), to supplement
- Pinyin
- bǔ
- Traditional
- 補
- Strokes
- 7
- Frequency
- 10841 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
吃
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
to eat; to consume, to eat at (a cafeteria etc), to eradicate; to destroy, to absorb, to suffer (shock, injury, defeat etc)
- Pinyin
- chī
- Strokes
- 6
- Frequency
- 143 of 2500
苦
Strokes: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0
bitter, hardship, pain, to suffer, to bring suffering to, painstakingly
- Pinyin
- kǔ
- Strokes
- 8
- Frequency
- 5535 of 2500