阴沟里翻船 in English yin1 gou1 li3 fan1 chuan2 Meaning

Meanings

  • to meet with unexpected failure (idiomatic expression)
  • to fail miserably (where failure was not expected)

Simplified Characters

阴 沟 里 翻 船

Traditional Characters

陰 溝 裡 翻 船

Pinyin

yin1 gou1 li3 fan1 chuan2

Literal

Literal explanation, with pronunciation and meaning of each character.

阴yin1surname Yin 沟gou1ditch 里li3variant of 裡|里[li3] 翻fan1to turn over 船chuan2variant of 船[chuan2]