费笔墨

Traditional (Taiwan): 費筆墨

fèibǐmò ㄈㄟˋ ㄅㄧˇ ㄇㄛˋ

    • to take great effort in writing
    • to find something hard to explain in writing

Character by character

Saying俗语俗語

Idiom惯用语 · Rarely used now

Literally
use up brush and ink
Meaning
To take great effort in writing, or to find it hard to explain something clearly in writing.

Sources