Cutting flesh to patch a sore is no long-term solution.
Tips
history
The chengyu 剜肉补疮 ('cut flesh to patch a sore') comes from a Tang poem by Nie Yizhong and describes solving one problem by creating a worse one, like a loan that fixes today's debt by ruining tomorrow.
memory
剜 = 宛 ('curved') + 刂 (knife radical). A curved blade scooping something out. The knife radical 刂 is your visual cue that this is a cutting verb.
Right knife radical, the upright side form of 刀. It indexes 剜 in the cutting family: 刻 carve, 削 pare, 割 sever. The radical commits the meaning to blade-work - gouging out a hollow with a knife, coring an apple or scooping eyes from a potato.
Left 宛 supplies the sound: wǎn drifts to wān with the regular tone shift. The same phonetic powers 碗 bowl, 婉 graceful, 腕 wrist, 蜿 winding. The hollowed, gently rounded shape it pictures mirrors what 剜 produces.
