| 讨好卖乖 |
tǎo hǎo mài guāi |
to curry favor by showing obeisance (idiom) |
| 讨 |
tǎo |
to invite / to provoke / to demand or ask for / to send armed forces to suppress / to denounce or condemn / to marry (a woman) / to discuss or study |
| 讨好 |
tǎo hǎo |
to get the desired outcome / to win favor by fawning on sb / to curry favor with / a fruitful outcome to reward one's labor |
| 好 |
hǎo |
good / appropriate; proper / all right! / (before a verb) easy to / (before a verb) good to / (before an adjective for exclamatory effect) so / (verb complement indicating completion) / (of two people) close; on intimate terms / (after a personal pronoun) hello |
| 好 |
hào |
to be fond of; to have a tendency to; to be prone to |
| 卖 |
mài |
to sell / to betray / to spare no effort / to show off or flaunt |
| 卖乖 |
mài guāi |
to show off one's cleverness / (of sb who has received beneficial treatment) to profess to have been hard done by |
| 乖 |
guāi |
(of a child) obedient, well-behaved / clever / shrewd / alert / perverse / contrary to reason / irregular / abnormal |