吃 里 扒 外

chī lǐ pá wàidictionary entry

(idiom) to work against the interests of sb one derives support from / to double-cross one's employer / to bite the hand that feeds

Sources & editorial notes

Reference definitions: CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source release 2026-10-27T01:55:52Z. Imported 2026-10-27. Definition wording and meaning order are retained. Recognized pronunciation references are displayed with tone marks; the original source record is available below.

Source record: cd-8393fca3862a8ed7. Source SHA-256: bbc4b27f26bee1a262f4d7939667a040c7857c7fc0200a2fa7a86d3352a09eae.

Original source entry:

吃裡扒外 吃里扒外 [chi1 li3 pa2 wai4] /(idiom) to work against the interests of sb one derives support from; to double-cross one's employer; to bite the hand that feeds/

Reference definitions and teaching material have separate provenance.

Reference information

The definitions above are from CC-CEDICT. Examples and usage notes are available on selected entries.

Character information

View the individual characters. Their meanings do not necessarily explain the meaning of the whole word.

Other forms in these source records: 吃裡扒外

吃
chī
to eat / to consume / to eat at (a cafeteria etc) / to eradicate / to destroy / to absorb / to suffer (shock, injury, defeat etc)
里
lǐ
lining / interior / inside / internal / also written 裏|里[lǐ] / li, ancient measure of length, approx. 500 m / neighborhood / ancient administrative unit of 25 families / (Tw) borough, administrative unit between the township 鎮|镇[zhèn] and neighborhood 鄰|邻[lín] levels
Lǐ
surname Li
扒
bā
to peel / to skin / to tear / to pull down / to cling to (sth on which one is climbing) / to dig
pá
to rake up / to steal / to braise / to crawl
外
wài
outside / in addition / foreign / external

Reference definitions from CC-CEDICT.