鸟枪换炮 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• bird shotgun replaced by cannon ; equipment improved enormously

Character by character

• 鸟niǎobird
• 枪qiānggun, rife; lance, spear
• 换huànto change; to exchange, to swap, to trade
• 炮pàocannon, artillery

Idioms sharing a character

• 一石二鸟 yī shí èr niǎo
• 作鸟兽散 zuò niǎo shòu sàn
• 如鸟兽散 rú niǎo shòu sàn
• 小鸟依人 xiǎo niǎo yī rén
• 乌鸟私情 wū niǎo sī qíng
• 笨鸟先飞 bèn niǎo xiān fēi
• 笼鸟槛猿 lóng niǎo jiàn yuán
• 惊弓之鸟 jīng gōng zhī niǎo
• 鸟尽弓藏 niǎo jìn gōng cáng
• 鸟语花香 niǎo yǔ huā xiāng

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