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打臉

简打脸 · 繁打臉

Mandarin · pinyin dǎ liǎn

to paint one's face with stage makeup
(neologism, attested by 2014) to expose sb as wrong; to put egg on sb's face

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Characters in this entry

打: dǎ · strike, hit, beat; fight; attack
臉: liǎn · face; cheek; reputation
脸: liǎn · face; cheek; reputation

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

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Mandarin tones

3–3 · da3 lian3

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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.

打臉 · find source passages ↗ · 打脸 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

verb

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see 打, 臉 /脸. to slap right in the face
(neologism, transitive) to prove (a person or their opinion or prediction) wrong

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

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