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马后炮

mǎ hòu pào

HSK 3.0 level 7-9 3-character word Traditional 馬後炮

马后炮 (mǎ hòu pào) means "lit. firing after the horse; fig. belated action; giving advice in hindsight". It is an HSK 3.0 level 7-9 word, and was not on the old six-level HSK list.

What 马后炮 means

1. (Chinese chess) moving the cannon after moving the horse away
2. (fig.) a useless action or comment; sth done after it's too late

Other readings

马后炮 is 多音字 — it is read more than one way, and the reading changes the meaning.

• mǎ hòu pàovariant of {马后炮|mǎ hòu pào}

The characters in 马后炮

• 马mǎhorse; horse or cavalry piece in Chinese chess; knight in Western chess
• 后hòuempress; queen; (archaic) monarch
• 炮pàocannon; firecracker

Example sentences

• 事情已经定下来了，我们再怎幺努力也无济于事了，一切都是马后炮了。
  The matter can't be changed. No matter how hard we try, everything is fruitless.

Words containing 马后炮

• 放马后炮fàng mǎ hòu pàoto fire after the horse has bolted (idiom); to act too late to be effective

Go deeper

• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read mǎ hòu pào correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.