📖 Meaning
A variant of 救过不赡, meaning that one cannot even adequately remedy one's own faults and mistakes. It describes a situation where errors or shortcomings are so numerous or pressing that correction cannot keep pace with them. The phrase conveys a sense of being overwhelmed by the consequences of one's missteps.
📜 Origin Story
No single classical anecdote is recorded as the source of this idiom; it is listed in dictionaries as a variant form of the older expression 救过不赡, which is attested in Han-dynasty and later political writing lamenting that a ruler's or official's accumulated errors had outpaced any attempt at remedy. Both forms share the structure 救过 (to rescue or remedy faults) plus a negated sufficiency (不赡 / 不给, both meaning insufficient). It is used in the same contexts of governance and self-reproach as the better-attested variant.
💡 Example Usage
新官上任，弊端丛生，纵有良策亦救过不给。
The new official took office amid a tangle of abuses, and even good policies could not remedy the mounting faults fast enough.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 救过不给
- Pinyin: jiù guò bù gěi
- Literal Translation: remedy, fault, not, suffice
- Category: Recovery
- Characters: 4