If 莫過於 doesn't start sentence, how it means "nothing can surpass ..."? ABC Chinese–English Comprehensive Dictionary (2003), p 629.

Wiktionary also defines this &quot;nothing can surpass ...&quot; I thought 莫過於 must start sentence, because

...  is at end

definition has just one ellipsis ...


But consider Wiktionary's two example sentences. Like screenshot below, 莫過於 does NOT start. So isn't definition above wrong?

Shouldn't definition have another ellipsis? Like &quot;no ...[first noun]... can surpass ... [second noun]&quot;

How improve definition?


I screen-shot 5:16. I know 痛苦莫過於生存 means &quot;nothing is more painful than existence&quot;.
The thing is, Chinese and English are so different that you would rarely see a sentence that can be translated word-by-word and in the original order, without sounding unnatural.
For example, Wiktionary defines 什么 as &quot;what&quot;. But can we translate 你在做什么? (what are you doing?) without rearranging elements in the sentence? No, usually we can't. Does that change the fact that 什么 means what in this sentence?
I'd argue that the English translation actually has the ellipsis right. Think about it this way, ellipsis means something needs to go in there. And in English, you start the sentence with nothing is more, so there is no need for an ellipsis to appear before the phrase, because there is nothing before it in the final sentence.