巧立名目 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to fabricate excuses
• to concoct various items (e.g. to pad an expense account)

Character by character

• 巧qiǎoskillful, ingenious, clever
• 立lìto stand; to establish, to set up
• 名míngname; position, rank, title
• 目mùeye; to look, to see; division, topic

Idioms sharing a character

• 小巧玲珑 xiǎo qiǎo líng lóng
• 巧舌如簧 qiǎo shé rú huáng
• 巧言令色 qiǎo yán lìng sè
• 熟能生巧 shú néng shēng qiǎo
• 花言巧语 huā yán qiǎo yǔ
• 三足鼎立 sān zú dǐng lì
• 亭亭玉立 tíng tíng yù lì
• 势不两立 shì bù liǎng lì
• 哀毁骨立 āi huǐ gǔ lì
• 坐立不安 zuò lì bù ān

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