垂涎三尺 — Chinese idiom
垂涎三尺
chuí xián sān chǐ
Meaning
- to drool (over)
- to yearn for
- to covet
- to crave
Character by character
- 垂chuíto hang, to dangle; to hand down, to bequeath; alm
- 涎xiánsaliva
- 三sānthree
- 尺chǐruler, tape-measure; unit of length, about 1 ft.
Idioms sharing a character
- 功败垂成 gōng bài chuí chéng
- 名垂青史 míng chuí qīng shǐ
- 坐不垂堂 zuò bù chuí táng
- 垂死挣扎 chuí sǐ zhēng zhá
- 垂涎欲滴 chuí xián yù dī
- 垂帘听政 chuí lián tīng zhèng
- 垂头丧气 chuí tóu sàng qì
- 染指垂涎 rǎn zhǐ chuí xián
- 馋涎欲滴 chán xián yù dī
- 一唱三叹 yī chàng sān tàn
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.