| 打小算盘 |
dǎ xiǎo suàn pán |
lit. to count on a narrow abacus (idiom); petty and scheming selfishly / concerned with petty interests / selfish and uncaring of the interests of others / bean counter |
| 打 |
dá |
(loanword) dozen / Taiwan pr. [da3] |
| 打 |
dǎ |
a semantically light, transitive verb that is combined with various grammatical objects to form compound verbs and verb-object phrases with a diverse range of meanings (e.g. 打伞 "to hold an umbrella", 打电话 "to make a phone call", 打针 "to get an injection", 打手套 "to knit gloves", 打气 "to inflate") / to hit; to strike / to fight / (coll.) from; since (as in 打那以后 "since then") |
| 打小 |
dǎ xiǎo |
(dialect) from childhood; from a young age |
| 小 |
xiǎo |
small / tiny / few / young |
| 小算盘 |
xiǎo suàn pán |
lit. small abacus / fig. selfish calculations / bean-counting |
| 算 |
suàn |
to regard as / to figure / to calculate / to compute |
| 算盘 |
suàn pán |
abacus / CL:把 / plan / scheme |
| 盘 |
pán |
tray; plate; dish / (finance) (bound form) market prices / (computing) (bound form) disk / to coil (a rope, pigtail etc) / to check; to examine; to investigate / to transfer; to sell (property) / to shift; to move (sth big and heavy) / classifier for things resembling a plate or dish / classifier for coils / classifier for games or matches (chess, table tennis etc) |