盘根错节 — Chinese idiom
盘根错节
pán gēn cuò jié
Traditional: 盤根錯節
Meaning
- twisted roots and intertwined joints ; complicated and very tricky
- knotty and deeply-rooted difficulties
Character by character
- 盘pántray, plate, dish; to examine
- 根gēnroot, basis, foundation
- 错cuòerror, mistake; incorrect, wrong
- 节jiéfestival; knot, joint; segment; to economize, to s
Idioms sharing a character
- 一盘散沙 yī pán sǎn shā
- 打小算盘 dǎ xiǎo suàn pán
- 杯盘狼藉 bēi pán láng jí
- 沙盘推演 shā pán tuī yǎn
- 盘旋曲折 pán xuán qū zhé
- 盘根问底 pán gēn wèn dǐ
- 盘根究底 pán gēn jiū dǐ
- 盘龙卧虎 pán lóng wò hǔ
- 虎踞龙盘 hǔ jù lóng pán
- 刨根问底 páo gēn wèn dǐ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.