欲盖弥彰 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• trying to hide it makes it more conspicuous ; A cover up only makes matters worse.

Character by character

• 欲yùdesire, want, longing, intent
• 盖gàito cover, to hide, to protect
• 弥mícomplete, extensive, full; to fill
• 彰zhāngclear, manifest, obvious

Idioms sharing a character

• 七情六欲 qī qíng liù yù
• 伤心欲绝 shāng xīn yù jué
• 利欲熏心 lì yù xūn xīn
• 呼之欲出 hū zhī yù chū
• 喷薄欲出 pēn bó yù chū
• 垂涎欲滴 chuí xián yù dī
• 悲痛欲绝 bēi tòng yù jué
• 欲壑难填 yù hè nán tián
• 我醉欲眠 wǒ zuì yù mián
• 昏昏欲睡 hūn hūn yù shuì

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