钻牛角尖 — Chinese idiom
钻牛角尖
zuān niú jiǎo jiān
Traditional: 鑽牛角尖
Meaning
- lit. to penetrate into a bull's horn ; fig. to waste time on an insoluble or insignificant problem
- to bash one's head against a brick wall
- a wild goose chase
- a blind alley
- to split hairs
Character by character
- 钻zuāndiamond; to bore, to drill, to pierce
- 牛niúox, cow, bull
- 角jiǎoangle, corner; horn, horn-shaped
- 尖jiānsharp, pointed, acute; keen, shrewd
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
- 钻故纸堆 zuān gù zhǐ duī
- 九牛一毛 jiǔ niú yī máo
- 呼牛作马 hū niú zuò mǎ
- 呼牛呼马 hū niú hū mǎ
- 土牛木马 tǔ niú mù mǎ
- 多如牛毛 duō rú niú máo
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.