大海里捞针
dà​hǎi​lǐ​lāo​zhēn

to look for a needle in a haystack

  • created reference approved 大海里捞针/大海裡撈針 → 难上难/難上難 (see) — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    大海里捞针 / 大海裡撈針 dà​hǎi​lǐ​lāo​zhēn

    难上难 / 難上難 nán​shàng​nán

    see

    Changed: source (simp), source (trad), source pinyin, target (simp), target (trad), target pinyin, type

    created reference

  • created sense approved 大海里捞针/大海裡撈針 · dà​hǎi​lǐ​lāo​zhēn · to look for a needle in a haystack — "Initial import from upstream dictionary"

    大海里捞针 / 大海裡撈針

    dà​hǎi​lǐ​lāo​zhēn

    to look for a needle in a haystack

    to fish for a needle in the ocean; a metaphor for something extremely difficult to achieve or nearly impossible to find; often used as the first half of a two-part allegorical greeting (xiehouyu) where the second half is [[难上难|難上難|nan2 shang4 nan2]]

    大海 (literal) → 大海 · dà​hǎi · sea 里 (bound) → 里/裡 · li · in 捞 (literal) → 捞/撈 · lāo · to scoop up 针 (literal) → 针/針 · zhēn · needle

    Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

    created sense