話裡套話 huà lǐ tào huà

to fish for information through casual talk

Word data

HSK Not in HSK
Frequency Unknown

Definitions

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

Characters

Character Meaning
話 huà
speech; talk; conversation
裡 lǐ
inside; interior; internal
套 tào HSK 5
classifier for sets, collections; to cover; to encase
話 huà
speech; talk; conversation