南轅北轍 Save Create a free account to save words Simplified: 南辕北辙 nányuánběizhé ㄋㄢˊ ㄩㄢˊ ㄅㄟˇ ㄓㄜˊ 男 女 to act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom) Character by character 南(nán)south 轅(yuán)shaft of a cart or carriage 北(běi)north 轍(zhé)idea Sign up for a free account to save words and review them A Chinese word or character, or English Search Sources CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0 pinyinjs, Apache-2.0