zimai字脈
LookupMandarin · 繁體 · English
Mandarin–English · CC-CEDICTSources ↗
DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

流水不腐，戶樞不蠹

简 流水不腐，户枢不蠹 · 繁 流水不腐，戶樞不蠹
Mandarin · pinyin liú shuǐ bù fǔ , hù shū bù dù

Meanings

  1. lit. flowing water does not rot, nor a door-hinge rust (idiom)
  2. fig. constant activity prevents decay
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

流
liú · flow, circulate, drift; class
水
shuǐ · water, liquid, lotion, juice
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
腐
fǔ · rot, decay, spoil; rotten
戶
Look up this written character
樞
Look up this written character
蠹
dù · moth; insects which eat into cloth
户
hù · door; family
枢
shū · door hinge; pivot; center of power
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Entries containing 流水不腐，戶樞不蠹 ↗Words written with 流 ↗Words written with 水 ↗Words written with 不 ↗Words written with 腐 ↗Words written with 戶 ↗Words written with 樞 ↗Words written with 蠹 ↗Words written with 户 ↗Words written with 枢 ↗

Connected dictionary

8character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.
Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

lau4 seoi2 bat1 fu6 ，wu6 syu1 bat1 dou3

Pleco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Word reading; meanings not aligned.

流水不腐，戶樞不蠹 · liu2 shui3 bu4 fu3 , hu4 shu1 bu4 du4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 65,010
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record流水不腐，戶樞不蠹 流水不腐，户枢不蠹 [liu2 shui3 bu4 fu3 , hu4 shu1 bu4 du4] /lit. flowing water does not rot, nor a door-hinge rust (idiom)/fig. constant activity prevents decay/