化枭为鸠

化枭为鸠 in English

huà xiāo wéi jiū: (idiom) To turn a dangerous situation into a safe one. The expression contrasts the owl, once regarded as an ominous bird, with the dove, a symbol of good fortune.

Character breakdown

化 huà to make into
枭梟 xiāo owl
为爲 wèi because of
鸠鳩 jiū turtledove

Stroke order

Le caractère 化 tracé avec le numéro de chaque trait à son point de départ — Numbered strokes

Stroke-by-stroke animation of the character 化

Stroke data from Make Me a Hanzi, derived from the Arphic PL fonts under the Arphic Public License.

Le caractère 为 tracé avec le numéro de chaque trait à son point de départ — Numbered strokes

Stroke-by-stroke animation of the character 为

Stroke data from Make Me a Hanzi, derived from the Arphic PL fonts under the Arphic Public License.

How it used to be written

化

Oracle bone script 商
Clerical script 東漢
See all 15 forms

枭

These are the forms of 梟, the traditional character: 枭 is a twentieth-century simplification, found in no ancient corpus.

Chu manuscripts 戰國.楚
Clerical script 東漢
See all 4 forms

鸠

These are the forms of 鳩, the traditional character: 鸠 is a twentieth-century simplification, found in no ancient corpus.

Small seal script
Clerical script 曹魏
See all 3 forms

Forms, sources and dates: the 字形演變 database of 小學堂, Academia Sinica, public domain (CC0).

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