咬文嚼字 — Chinese idiom
咬文嚼字
yǎo wén jiáo zì
Meaning
- to bite words and chew characters ; punctilious about minutiae of wording
Character by character
- 咬yǎoto bite, to gnaw
- 文wénculture, literature, writing
- 嚼jiáoto prattle, to be glib
- 字zìcharacter, letter, symbol, word
Idioms sharing a character
- 咬牙切齿 yǎo yá qiè chǐ
- 咬紧牙关 yǎo jǐn yá guān
- 紧咬不放 jǐn yǎo bù fàng
- 一文不值 yī wén bù zhí
- 一纸空文 yī zhǐ kōng wén
- 不值一文 bù zhí yī wén
- 博文约礼 bó wén yuē lǐ
- 天文数字 tiān wén shù zì
- 奇文共赏 qí wén gòng shǎng
- 才兼文武 cái jiān wén wǔ
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.