DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

來電

简来电 · 繁來電

Mandarin · pinyin lái diàn

incoming telephone call (or telegram)
to phone in; to send in a telegram
to have an instant attraction to sb
(of electricity, after an outage) to come back

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Characters in this entry

來: lái · come, coming; return, returning
電: Look up this written character
来: lái · come, coming; return, returning
电: diàn · electricity; electric; lightning

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

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Mandarin tones

2–4 · lai2 dian4

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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.

來電 · find source passages ↗ · 来电 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 6 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

loi4 din6

Cantonese word readings for 來電. 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

(countable) incoming call (Classifier: 通)
(countable) incoming telegram (Classifier: 封)

verb

(countable, verb-object) to telephone; to call
(countable, verb-object) to send a telegram here
(countable, verb-object) to restore power supply (after a blackout); to come back (of electricity after an outage)
(colloquial) to have instant chemistry with; to be attracted to

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

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