







擒贼先擒王 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to catch the ringleader first in order to break up the gang”. To tackle the most crucial or fundamental issue first when dealing with a complex problem. Literally, “Catch the thief, first catch the king”.

Choose character parts and animate their colors, together or in stroke order
Open the tool →
Create PNGs with pinyin, highlight character parts or remove strokes
Open the tool →
Chinese and English fill-in vocabulary worksheets
Open the tool →
Printable tracing sheets with a QR learning companion
Open the tool →擒贼先擒王 (qín zéi xiān qín wáng) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to catch the ringleader first in order to break up the gang”.
擒贼先擒王 is pronounced qín zéi xiān qín wáng in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 擒贼先擒王 means “Catch the thief, first catch the king”. It is used to mean “to catch the ringleader first in order to break up the gang”.
指作战要先抓主要敌手。也比喻做事首先要抓关键。