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乾娘

简干娘 · 繁乾娘

Mandarin · pinyin gān niáng

adoptive mother (traditional adoption, i.e. without legal ramifications)

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Characters in this entry

乾: qián · gān · dry; warming principle of the sun, penetrating and fertilizing, heavenly generative principle (male); trigram ☰; hexagram ䷀
娘: niáng · mother; young girl; woman; wife
干: gàn · oppose, offend; invade; dried

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · gan1 niang2

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

乾娘 · find source passages ↗ · 干娘 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gon1 noeng4

Cantonese word readings for 乾娘. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

(colloquial) godmother; (nominally) adoptive mother

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

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