翻江倒海 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. overturning seas and rivers
• fig. overwhelming
• earth-shattering
• in a spectacular mess

Character by character

• 翻fānto upset, to capsize, to flip over
• 江jiānglarge river; the Yangtze; surname
• 倒dǎoto collapse, to fall over; to lie down
• 海hǎisea, ocean; maritime

Idioms sharing a character

• 人仰马翻 rén yǎng mǎ fān
• 天翻地覆 tiān fān dì fù
• 翻天覆地 fān tiān fù dì
• 翻山越岭 fān shān yuè lǐng
• 翻空出奇 fān kōng chū qí
• 翻箱倒柜 fān xiāng dǎo guì
• 翻箱倒箧 fān xiāng dǎo qiè
• 翻老皇历 fān lǎo huáng lì
• 翻云覆雨 fān yún fù yǔ
• 咸鱼翻身 xián yú fān shēn

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