大家

Mandarin · pinyin dà jiā

Meanings

  1. everyone
  2. influential family
  3. great expert
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Characters in this entry

大
dà · big, great, vast, large, high
家
jiā · house, home, residence; family
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–1 · da4 jia1

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 8 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

daai6 gaa1

Cantonese word readings for 大家. 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.

pron

  1. everyone; everybody; all of us

noun

  1. residence of members of the nobility
  2. master (as used by a servant)
  3. emperor (as used by his consort)
  4. rich and powerful family; old and well-known family
  5. master; great expert

noun

  1. (literary) alternative form of 大姑 (dàgū, “respectful address for a woman”)
  2. (literary or Eastern Min, Southern Min) mother-in-law (husband's mother)

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

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