敷衍
fū​yǎn

elaborate

敷衍 fū​yǎn
elaborate verb
to elaborate on a theme or expound on the classics

他将这则寓言敷衍成了一篇长篇小说。

tā jiāng zhè zé yù​yán fū​yǎn chéng le yī piān cháng​piān​xiǎo​shuō.

He expanded the fable into a full-length novel.

get by verb
to barely manage to survive or maintain a situation

这点儿钱只够敷衍几天的生活费。

zhè diǎn'er qián zhǐ gòu fū​yǎn jǐ tiān de shēng​huó​fèi.

This small amount of money is barely enough to cover living expenses for a few days.

perfunctory idiom
to do something half-heartedly, skimp on effort, or act just for show

他总是敷衍了事，从不认真对待工作。

tā zǒng​shì fū​yǎn liǎo​shì, cóng bù rèn​zhēn duì​dài gōng​zuò.

He always does things perfunctorily and never takes his work seriously.

Frequency
Movie subtitles
2.12 per million appears in 1% of films
Written text
3.54 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 6

Cross-References

Has variant

Sources
Definitions
CC-CEDICT
Frequency data
SUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)