







钳口吞舌 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to keep silent”. To seal one's lips; to refuse to speak or utter a word, often due to inability or unwillingness. Literally, “Clamp the mouth and swallow the tongue”.

Turn a Chinese character or sentence into a GIF or MP4
Open the tool →
Chinese and English fill-in vocabulary worksheets
Open the tool →
Choose character parts and animate their colors, together or in stroke order
Open the tool →
Create PNGs with pinyin, highlight character parts or remove strokes
Open the tool →钳口吞舌 (qián kǒu tūn shé) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to keep silent”.
钳口吞舌 is pronounced qián kǒu tūn shé in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 钳口吞舌 means “Clamp the mouth and swallow the tongue”. It is used to mean “to keep silent”.
犹言闭口不言。紧闭着嘴,什么也不说。