此起彼伏 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• up here, down there ; to rise and fall in succession
• no sooner one subsides, the next arises
• repeating continuously
• occurring again and again (of applause, fires, waves, protests, conflicts, uprisings etc)

Character by character

• 此cǐthis, these; in this case, then
• 起qǐto begin, to initiate; to rise, to stand up
• 彼bǐthat, those, the other
• 伏fúto crouch, to crawl, to lie hidden, to conceal

Idioms sharing a character

• 不分彼此 bù fēn bǐ cǐ
• 不虚此行 bù xū cǐ xíng
• 不过如此 bù guò rú cǐ
• 但愿如此 dàn yuàn rú cǐ
• 仅此而已 jǐn cǐ ér yǐ
• 原来如此 yuán lái rú cǐ
• 多此一举 duō cǐ yī jǔ
• 彼此彼此 bǐ cǐ bǐ cǐ
• 志不在此 zhì bù zài cǐ
• 乐此不疲 lè cǐ bù pí

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.