Our mission is to provide free tools for learning Chinese. This series explores idioms and proverbs, meaningful phrases worth knowing. Today’s idiom: 「守缺抱殘」.
The idiom 「守缺抱殘」 is the focus of our introduction today, and its explanation and application are listed below.
Hold on to the broken things. A metaphor for being conservative and unwilling to change. Also written as “guarding the palace and hugging the remnants.”
The Mandarin pronunciation of this idiom is :
shǒu quē bào cán
while its Cantonese pinyin is :
sau2 kyut3 pou5 chaan4
The world of Chinese idioms is immense, with countless meanings and applications to discover. We hope these resources help you unlock the beauty of learning Chinese.

