DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT
白
Mandarin · pinyin bái#
Meanings · bái
- white
- in vain
- free of charge
- (bound form) (of facts, the truth, a situation) clear; evident (e.g. 真相大白 zhēn xiàng dà bái)
- (bound form) plain; without additions (e.g. 白飯 bái fàn)
- (bound form) to explain; to state (e.g. 辯白 biàn bái)
- (bound form) to give a disdainful look (e.g. 白了他一眼 bái le tā yī yǎn)
- (bound form) vernacular (e.g. 白話 bái huà)
- (bound form) spoken lines in opera (e.g. 念白 niàn bái)
- (bound form) reactionary; anti-communist (e.g. 白區 bái qū)
Mandarin · pinyin Bái#
Meanings · Bái
- surname Bai
- Bai ethnic group
Characters in this entry
- 白
- bái · white; pure, unblemished; bright
Explore the spelling
Mandarin tones
2 · bai2
Compare attested words with these syllables ↗Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.
Connected dictionary
1character link2same-tone records5source references
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.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.
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 23 senses · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
baak6
Cantonese word readings for 白. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.
CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack
Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section
Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.
character
- white
- clear; easy to understand
- clear; pure; plain; blank
- bright; well-lit
- eminent; prominent
- vernacular
- dialect
- (abbreviation, alt-of) short for 白讀／白读 (báidú, “colloquial reading”)
- reactionary; anticommunist
- in vain; for nothing
- free of charge; gratuitous; gratis
- to stare coldly; to stare at someone with the white of the eyes
- to explain; to present; to state
- to mispronounce or wrongly write a character
- spoken lines
- funeral
- (Hokkien) bland and tasteless
- (Hokkien) cooked with just water without adding any seasoning
- (Hokkien) greasy; with a lot of fat or oil
- (Hokkien) jargon; cant
- (Mainland China Hokkien) frank speech
- a surname, commonly romanized as Bai
- (～族) Bai, an ethnic group living primarily in Yunnan, China
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack