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掏空

Mandarin · pinyin tāo kōng

to hollow out
to empty out
to use up
(finance) tunneling

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Characters in this entry

掏: tāo · take out; pull out; clean out
空: kōng · empty, hollow, bare, deserted

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

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Mandarin tones

1–1 · tao1 kong1

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

tou4 hung1

Cantonese word readings for 掏空. 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.

verb

(literally) to hollow out; to empty out
(figuratively) to use up; to exhaust (one's energy); to rack one's brain
(figurative, finance) to engage in tunneling

verb

(Jin) to find time (to do something); to take time

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

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