磨穿铁砚 — Chinese idiom
磨穿铁砚
mó chuān tiě yàn
Traditional: 磨穿鐵硯
Meaning
- to grind one's way through an ink stone
- to persevere in a difficult task
- to study diligently
Character by character
- 磨mómillstone; to grind, to polish, to rub, to wear ou
- 穿chuānto drill, to pierce; to dress, to wear
- 铁tiěiron; strong, solid, firm
- 砚yàninkstone
Idioms sharing a character
- 切磋琢磨 qiē cuō zhuó mó
- 卸磨杀驴 xiè mò shā lǘ
- 好事多磨 hǎo shì duō mó
- 磨刀霍霍 mó dāo huò huò
- 磨嘴皮子 mó zuǐ pí zi
- 磨杵成针 mó chǔ chéng zhēn
- 耳鬓厮磨 ěr bìn sī mó
- 临阵磨枪 lín zhèn mó qiāng
- 软磨硬泡 ruǎn mó yìng pào
- 一眼看穿 yī yǎn kàn chuān
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.