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三顧茅廬

简三顾茅庐 · 繁三顧茅廬

Mandarin · pinyin sān gù máo lú

lit. to make three visits to the thatched cottage (idiom) (allusion to an episode in Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義 Sān guó Yǎn yì in which Liu Bei 劉備 Liú Bèi recruits Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 Zhū gě Liàng to his cause by visiting him three times)
fig. to make earnest and repeated requests of sb

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Characters in this entry

三: sān · three
顧: Look up this written character
茅: máo · reeds, rushes, grass; surname
廬: Look up this written character
顾: gù · look back; look at; look after
庐: lú · hut, cottage; name of a mountain

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–4–2–2 · san1 gu4 mao2 lu2

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

saam1 gu3 maau4 lou4

Cantonese word readings for 三顧茅廬. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

saam1 gu3 maau4 lou4

Pleco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Word reading; meanings not aligned.

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(figurative) to sincerely and repeatedly request someone to take up a post

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack