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命不久矣

Mandarin · pinyin mìng bù jiǔ yǐ

at death's door

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Characters in this entry

命: mìng · life; destiny, fate, luck; an order, instruction
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
久: jiǔ · long time (ago); time passage, grow late
矣: yǐ · particle of completed action

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–3–3 · ming4 bu4 jiu3 yi3

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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.

phrase

(idiomatic) to not have long to live

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

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