刻鵠類鶩

1. • to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom)
2. • to fail utterly in trying to copy something
3. • to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result

Character by character

• 刻(kè)carve
• 鵠(hú)swan
• 類(lèi)kind
• 鶩(wù)duck