剖腹藏珠 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• lit. cutting one's stomach to hide a pearl
• fig. wasting a lot of effort on trivialities

Character by character

• 剖pōuto bisect, to dissect, to slice
• 腹fùstomach, belly, abdomen; inside
• 藏cángto conceal, to hide; to hoard, to store
• 珠zhūgem, jewel, pearl, precious stone

Idioms sharing a character

• 口蜜腹剑 kǒu mì fù jiàn
• 大腹便便 dà fù pián pián
• 心腹之患 xīn fù zhī huàn
• 指腹为婚 zhǐ fù wéi hūn
• 捧腹大笑 pěng fù dà xiào
• 推心置腹 tuī xīn zhì fù
• 满腹牢骚 mǎn fù láo sāo
• 满腹经纶 mǎn fù jīng lún
• 空腹高心 kōng fù gāo xīn
• 精神满腹 jīng shén mǎn fù

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