托兒

简 托儿 · 繁 托兒
Mandarin · pinyin tuō ér#

Meanings · tuō ér

  1. childcare
Mandarin · pinyin tuō r#

Meanings · tuō r

  1. (coll.) shill; tout; phony customer who pretends to buys things so as to lure real customers
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Characters in this entry

托
tuō · to hold up with palm; to support, rely on
兒
ér · son, child, oneself; final part
儿
ér · son, child; Kangxi radical 10
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · tuo1 er2

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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.

托兒 · find source passages ↗ · 托儿 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 4 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun · Etymology 1

  1. (Mandarin) erhua form of 托 (tuō, “support; stand”)
  2. (colloquial) partner of a street pedlar or shopkeeper who pretends to be a customer who uses decoys to attract customers
  3. (colloquial) plant in an audience

verb · Etymology 2

  1. (chiefly attributive) to take care of infants and children for others

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

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

托兒 · tuo1 er2 · tuo1 r5
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source lines 44,978, 44,979
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source records托兒 托儿 [tuo1 er2] /childcare/托兒 托儿 [tuo1 r5] /(coll.) shill; tout; phony customer who pretends to buys things so as to lure real customers/