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放刁

Mandarin · pinyin fàng diāo

to act wickedly
to bully
to make life difficult for sb by unreasonable actions

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Characters in this entry

放: fàng · put, release, free, liberate
刁: diāo · tricky, sly, crafty, cunning

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

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Mandarin tones

4–1 · fang4 diao1

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

fong3 diu1

Cantonese word readings for 放刁. 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

(Hokkien) to make threats of punishment or trouble to intimidate someone

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

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