应接不暇

yìng jiē bù xiá

too much coming in to deal with

Character by character

应yìng
respond

接jiē
receive

不bù
no

暇xiá
spare time

开业第一天，客人多得我们应接不暇。

On opening day we had more customers than we could handle.

Tone: neutral.

应 is yìng. Originally scenery too lovely to take in; now people, calls or orders.

Learn it in context

This idiom and thousands more are in Learn Chinese with Bao, with audio, pinyin and drills that make them stick.