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鼠目寸光

shǔ mù cùn guāng · literally “mouse eyes, inch sight”

Meaning

Short-sighted; able to see only immediate gain, missing the bigger picture.

In a sentence

Cutting the maintenance budget is 鼠目寸光.

Usage note

A criticism of judgement, not of eyesight.

Where you see it in Brain Challenge

This idiom appears in the picture-idiom levels as a picture or number clue. When the clue shows numbers, the digits usually become the first characters of each half of the idiom — that is why so many chengyu start with 一, 三, 五, 七, 九 or 十.

Play a picture-idiom level → · All idioms