蝇营狗苟 — Chinese idiom
蝇营狗苟
yíng yíng gǒu gǒu
Traditional: 蠅營狗苟
Meaning
- (lit.) to swarm like flies around rotten food and drag out an ignoble existence like a dog
- (fig.) to lead an undignified life; to resort to any means for personal gain
Character by character
- 蝇yíngfly, musca
- 营yíngcamp, barracks, army; to run, to manage
- 狗gǒudog
- 苟gǒucareless, frivolous, illicit; but, if only
Idioms sharing a character
- 如蝇逐臭 rú yíng zhú chòu
- 蝇头小利 yíng tóu xiǎo lì
- 官私合营 guān sī hé yíng
- 惨淡经营 cǎn dàn jīng yíng
- 结党营私 jié dǎng yíng sī
- 人模狗样 rén mú gǒu yàng
- 偷鸡摸狗 tōu jī mō gǒu
- 兔死狗烹 tù sǐ gǒu pēng
- 引狗入寨 yǐn gǒu rù zhài
- 打落水狗 dǎ luò shuǐ gǒu
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.