对症下药 — Chinese idiom
对症下药
duì zhèng xià yào
Traditional: 對症下藥
Meaning
- lit. to prescribe the right medicine for an illness ; fig. to study a problem to find the right way to solve it
- to take appropriate steps
Character by character
- 对duìcorrect, right; facing, opposed
- 症zhèngailment, disease, illness
- 下xiàbelow, underneath; inferior; to bring down; next
- 药yàodrugs, medicine; the leaf of the Dahurian angelica
Idioms sharing a character
- 冤家对头 yuān jiā duì tóu
- 唱对台戏 chàng duì tái xì
- 对牛弹琴 duì niú tán qín
- 对答如流 duì dá rú liú
- 对簿公堂 duì bù gōng táng
- 对酒当歌 duì jiǔ dāng gē
- 死无对证 sǐ wú duì zhèng
- 无言可对 wú yán kě duì
- 牛衣对泣 niú yī duì qì
- 针锋相对 zhēn fēng xiāng duì
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.