大海捞针 — Chinese idiom
大海捞针
dà hǎi lāo zhēn
Traditional: 大海撈針
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.