大海捞针 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. to fish a needle from the sea
• to find a needle in a haystack

Character by character

• 大dàbig, great, vast, high, deep
• 海hǎisea, ocean; maritime
• 捞lāoto dredge up; to fish for; to scoop out of the wat
• 针zhēnneedle, pin, tack; acupuncture

Idioms sharing a character

• 不识大体 bù shí dà tǐ
• 久仰大名 jiǔ yǎng dà míng
• 倾盆大雨 qīng pén dà yǔ
• 元恶大憝 yuán è dà duì
• 冒大不韪 mào dà bù wěi
• 功莫大焉 gōng mò dà yān
• 勃然大怒 bó rán dà nù
• 博大精深 bó dà jīng shēn
• 吃大锅饭 chī dà guō fàn
• 哄堂大笑 hōng táng dà xiào

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