抓耳挠腮 — Chinese idiom
抓耳挠腮
zhuā ěr náo sāi
Traditional: 抓耳撓腮
Meaning
- to tweak one's ears and scratch one's cheeks (as an expression of anxiety, delight, frustration etc)
Character by character
- 抓zhuāto clutch, to grab, to seize
- 耳ěrear; to hear, to hear of; handle
- 挠náoto yield; to scratch, to disturb
- 腮sāijaw; gills
Idioms sharing a character
- 不堪入耳 bù kān rù ěr
- 俯首帖耳 fǔ shǒu tiē ěr
- 充耳不闻 chōng ěr bù wén
- 如雷贯耳 rú léi guàn ěr
- 忠言逆耳 zhōng yán nì ěr
- 掩人耳目 yǎn rén ěr mù
- 掩耳盗铃 yǎn ěr dào líng
- 眼瞎耳聋 yǎn xiā ěr lóng
- 秋风过耳 qiū fēng guò ěr
- 耳提面命 ěr tí miàn mìng
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.