刻鵠類鶩 [－鹄类鹜]

Jyutping hak1 huk6 leoi6 mou6
Pinyin kè hú lèi wù

Definitions (CC-CEDICT)
  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