镜花水月 — Chinese idiom
镜花水月
jìng huā shuǐ yuè
Traditional: 鏡花水月
Meaning
- lit. flowers in a mirror and the moon reflected in the lake
- fig. an unrealistic rosy view
- viewing things through rose-tinted spectacles
- also written 水月鏡花|水月镜花
Character by character
- 镜jìngmirror, glass; lens, glasses
- 花huāflower, blossom; to spend (time or money)
- 水shuǐwater, liquid, lotion, juice
- 月yuèmoon; month
Idioms sharing a character
- 明镜高悬 míng jìng gāo xuán
- 有色眼镜 yǒu sè yǎn jìng
- 乐昌破镜 Lè chāng pò jìng
- 破镜重圆 pò jìng chóng yuán
- 借花献佛 jiè huā xiàn Fó
- 名花有主 míng huā yǒu zhǔ
- 天花乱坠 tiān huā luàn zhuì
- 奇花异草 qí huā yì cǎo
- 如花似玉 rú huā sì yù
- 寻花问柳 xún huā wèn liǔ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.