刻鹄类鹜 in English ke4 hu2 lei4 wu4 Meaning

Meanings

to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiomatic expression)
to fail utterly in trying to copy something
to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result

Simplified Characters

刻鹄类鹜

Traditional Characters

刻鵠類鶩

Pinyin

ke4 hu2 lei4 wu4

Literal

Literal explanation, with pronunciation and meaning of each character.

刻ke4quarter (hour) 鹄gu3center or bull's eye of an archery target (old) 类lei4kind 鹜wu4duck