Chinese idiom · 成语
犬牙交错
Meaning
Dog’s teeth interlocked; complex or jagged boundaries.
Character by character
Origin and story
Historical imageThe interlocking teeth of a dog supply a visual comparison for irregular boundaries. Earlier Han historical language uses related expressions about territories fitting together and constraining one another. The exact wording 犬牙交錯 appears in the Songshi (宋史), volume 333, in Yu Chong’s biography: farmland around Huanzhou intermingles with the Xia frontier, where harvests are exposed to raids and much land is abandoned.
The image is therefore geographic before it becomes a broader comparison for complicated situations. It need not mean that everything is simply untidy: alternating, overlapping, or mutually penetrating positions are central to the metaphor. There is no separate story of an actual dog causing a border dispute.
In everyday life
地图上，两座城市的辖区犬牙交错，很难一眼看清边界。
On the map, the two cities' jurisdictions interlock so irregularly that the boundary is hard to see at a glance.
Best for interlocking boundaries, positions, or interests rather than any kind of confusion.