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命途多舛

Mandarin · pinyin mìng tú duō chuǎn

to meet with many difficulties in one's life (idiom)

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Characters in this entry

命: mìng · life; destiny, fate, luck; an order, instruction
途: tú · way, road, path, journey; course
多: duō · much, many; more than, over
舛: chuǎn · oppose, deviate, be contrary to; Kangxi radical 136

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

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Mandarin tones

4–2–1–3 · ming4 tu2 duo1 chuan3

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

ming6 tou4 do1 cyun2

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

(idiomatic) to suffer many setbacks in life

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

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