拆东墙补西墙

lit. pull down the east wall to repair the west wall (idiom); fig. temporary expedient / rob Peter to pay Paul
lit. pull down the east wall to repair the west wall (idiom) / fig. to borrow from Peter to pay Paul

Characters and words in 拆东墙补西墙

to tear open / to tear down / to tear apart / to open

= + : Charlie Chaplin (ch) tries to tear down (拆) the salt marshes (斥) in front of the airplane (ai1) with a toy claw (扌), but it is really tedious to grab every salt crystal and every drop of water individually.
surname Dong

= + : Doggy Dog wants to build a model of the Pudong Oriental Pearl Tower in front of the engine. He has a model tower as guide, and a seven-branched laser sword as well as a daisy as building blocks.
east / host (i.e. sitting on east side of guest) / landlord

= + : Doggy Dog wants to build a model of the Pudong Oriental Pearl Tower in front of the engine. He has a model tower as guide, and a seven-branched laser sword as well as a daisy as building blocks.
variant of 牆|墙[qiang2], wall

= + : The Queen of Hearts (qi) and the stingray (啬) got married and took over the anglepod to start a new kingdom. In the kitchen (ang2) they start building their city wall (墙) out of lots of dirt (土). They also add lots of thorns to make the wall as stingy (墙) as possible.
wall / CL:面[mian4],堵[du3]

= + : The Queen of Hearts (qi) and the stingray (啬) got married and took over the anglepod to start a new kingdom. In the kitchen (ang2) they start building their city wall (墙) out of lots of dirt (土). They also add lots of thorns to make the wall as stingy (墙) as possible.
to repair / to patch / to mend / to make up for / to fill (a vacancy) / to supplement

= + : Bruno Bear (bu) broke his voodoo staff (卜) inside of the space station (Ø3) and he has nothing available than a royal ermine coat (衤). His staff means much more to him than the coat though, so he rips the royal ermine coat into stripes to fix (补) the staff with the stripes used as bandages.
the West / abbr. for Spain 西班牙[Xi1 ban1 ya2] / Spanish

西 = + : The wild west is largely recognized by the symbol of the cowboy hat.

西 = + : Marie Curie has gone crazy from the loneliness in space. In front of the space station, she sits inside of a large wooden box, wearing a cowboy hat and playing a 胡兀尔 fiddle, thinking that she's participating in a square dance in the wild west.
Western Wall, or Wailing Wall (Jerusalem)

Words with 拆东墙补西墙

拆东墙补西墙 is not used as a component in another word.

Sentences with 拆东墙补西墙

拆东墙补西墙 currently does not appear in any sentence.