刻鹄类鹜 kè hú lèi wù

DEFINITIONS

  1. to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom)
  2. to fail utterly in trying to copy something
  3. to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result

CHARACTERS

刻 kè carve, engrave; quarter hour
鹄 hú target
类 lèi class, group, kind, category
鹜 wù duck