钻故纸堆 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to dig into piles of outdated writings ; to study old books and papers

Character by character

• 钻zuāndiamond; to bore, to drill, to pierce
• 故gùreason, cause; happening, instance
• 纸zhǐpaper
• 堆duīcrowd, heap, pile, mass; to pile up; measure word

Idioms sharing a character

• 敲钉钻脚 qiāo dīng zuān jiǎo
• 无孔不钻 wú kǒng bù zuān
• 见缝就钻 jiàn fèng jiù zuān
• 钻坚仰高 zuān jiān yǎng gāo
• 钻牛角尖 zuān niú jiǎo jiān
• 一改故辙 yī gǎi gù zhé
• 依然如故 yī rán rú gù
• 依然故我 yī rán gù wǒ
• 平白无故 píng bái wú gù
• 攀亲道故 pān qīn dào gù

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