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腰

Mandarin · pinyin yāo

the waist and lower back
(bound form) kidney of an animal (as food)
the waist of trousers or a skirt
(metonym) money pouch; pocket
(bound form) the middle section of an upright object (mountain, bottle etc)

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腰: yāo · waist; kidney

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

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Mandarin tones

1 · yao1

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1character link19same-tone records

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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

jiu1

Cantonese word readings for 腰. 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.

character

(anatomy) waist; lower back; small of the back (Classifier: 條／条 c)
waist of clothes
kidney; edible animal kidney
purse; pockets
middle part
a surname, Yao

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

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