南辕北辙 Save Create a free account to save words Traditional (Taiwan): 南轅北轍 nányuánběizhé ㄋㄢˊ ㄩㄢˊ ㄅㄟˇ ㄓㄜˊ 男 女 to act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom) Character by character 南(nán)south 辕(yuán)shaft of a cart or carriage 北(běi)north 辙(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