隔岸观火 Save Sign in to save words Traditional (Taiwan): 隔岸觀火 géànguānhuǒ ㄍㄜˊ ㄢˋ ㄍㄨㄢ ㄏㄨㄛˇ to watch the fires burning across the river to delay entering the fray until all others have been exhausted by fighting amongst themselves (idiom) Character by character 隔(gé)separate 岸(àn)bank 观(guān)look at 火(huǒ)surname Huo A Chinese word or character, or English Search Sources CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0 pinyinjs, Apache-2.0