招兵买马 — Chinese idiom
招兵买马
zhāo bīng mǎi mǎ
Traditional: 招兵買馬
Meaning
- lit. to recruit soldiers and buy horses
- fig. to raise an army; to recruit new staff
Character by character
- 招zhāoto summon; to recruit; to levy
- 兵bīngsoldier; troops, an army; warlike
- 买mǎito buy, to purchase; to bribe, to persuade
- 马mǎhorse; surname
Idioms sharing a character
- 招摇撞骗 zhāo yáo zhuàng piàn
- 招摇过市 zhāo yáo guò shì
- 招蜂引蝶 zhāo fēng yǐn dié
- 招贤纳士 zhāo xián nà shì
- 招降纳叛 zhāo xiáng nà pàn
- 招风惹草 zhāo fēng rě cǎo
- 扬幡招魂 yáng fān zhāo hún
- 树大招风 shù dà zhāo fēng
- 目挑心招 mù tiǎo xīn zhāo
- 花枝招展 huā zhī zhāo zhǎn
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.