笑里藏刀 — Chinese idiom
笑里藏刀
xiào lǐ cáng dāo
Traditional: 笑裡藏刀
Meaning
- lit. a dagger hidden in smiles ; friendly manners belying hypocritical intentions
- when the fox preaches, look to the geese
Character by character
- 笑xiàoto smile, to laugh; to giggle; to snicker
- 里lǐunit of distance equal to 0.5km; village; lane
- 藏cángto conceal, to hide; to hoard, to store
- 刀dāoknife; old coin; measure
Idioms sharing a character
- 付之一笑 fù zhī yī xiào
- 似笑非笑 sì xiào fēi xiào
- 哄堂大笑 hōng táng dà xiào
- 哭笑不得 kū xiào bù dé
- 啼笑皆非 tí xiào jiē fēi
- 喜笑颜开 xǐ xiào yán kāi
- 嫣然一笑 yān rán yī xiào
- 嬉笑怒骂 xī xiào nù mà
- 捧腹大笑 pěng fù dà xiào
- 相视而笑 xiāng shì ér xiào
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.