盘根究底 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. to examine roots and inquire at the base ; to get to the bottom of sth

Character by character

• 盘pántray, plate, dish; to examine
• 根gēnroot, basis, foundation
• 究jiūto dig into, to investigate; actually, after all
• 底dǐbottom, underside; below, underneath

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
• 盘根错节 pán gēn cuò jié
• 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.