舞文弄墨 — Chinese idiom
舞文弄墨
wǔ wén nòng mò
Meaning
- to display one's facility with words
- to show off one's literary skills
- (original meaning) to pervert the law by playing with legal phraseology (墨 (mò) was a reference to 绳墨 (shéng mò))
Character by character
- 舞wǔto dance; to brandish
- 文wénculture, literature, writing
- 弄nòngto do; to mock, to tease; to play with
- 墨mòink; writing; Mexico
Idioms sharing a character
- 喜跃抃舞 xǐ yuè biàn wǔ
- 张牙舞爪 zhāng yá wǔ zhǎo
- 徇私舞弊 xùn sī wǔ bì
- 手舞足蹈 shǒu wǔ zú dǎo
- 歌舞升平 gē wǔ shēng píng
- 欢欣鼓舞 huān xīn gǔ wǔ
- 闻鸡起舞 wén jī qǐ wǔ
- 能歌善舞 néng gē shàn wǔ
- 载歌且舞 zài gē qiě wǔ
- 载歌载舞 zài gē zài wǔ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.