话里套话

to use seemingly innocent conversation topics as a pretext to glean information / to touch upon other matters not central to the topic being discussed

variant of 裡|里[li3]

lining / interior / inside / internal / also written 裏|里[li3]

li, ancient measure of length, approx. 500 m / neighborhood / ancient administrative unit of 25 families / (Tw) borough, administrative unit between the township 鎮|镇[zhen4] and neighborhood 鄰|邻[lin2] levels

dialect / language / spoken words / speech / talk / words / conversation / what sb said / CL:種|种[zhong3],席[xi2],句[ju4],口[kou3],番[fan1]

old variant of 話|话[hua4]

to cover / to encase / cover / sheath / to overlap / to interleave / to model after / to copy / formula / harness / loop of rope / (fig.) to fish for / to obtain slyly / classifier for sets, collections / bend (of a river or mountain range, in place names) / tau (Greek letter Ττ)

polite phrase / conventional greetings / cliché / to try to worm facts out of sb

polite phrase; conventional greetings / cliché / to try to worm facts out of sb