焦头烂额 — Chinese idiom
焦头烂额
jiāo tóu làn é
Traditional: 焦頭爛額
Meaning
- lit. badly burned about the head (from trying to put out a fire)
- fig. hard-pressed; under pressure (from a heavy workload, creditors etc)
Character by character
- 焦jiāoburned, scorched; anxious, vexed
- 头tóuhead; chief, boss; first, top
- 烂lànovercooked, overripe; rotten, spoiled
- 额éforehead; quota, amount
Idioms sharing a character
- 三天两头 sān tiān liǎng tóu
- 三头六臂 sān tóu liù bì
- 事到临头 shì dào lín tóu
- 傻头傻脑 shǎ tóu shǎ nǎo
- 冤家对头 yuān jiā duì tóu
- 出人头地 chū rén tóu dì
- 初露头角 chū lù tóu jiǎo
- 劈头盖脸 pī tóu gài liǎn
- 吴头楚尾 Wú tóu Chǔ wěi
- 品头论足 pǐn tóu lùn zú
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.