DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

貴賤

简贵贱 · 繁貴賤

Mandarin · pinyin guì jiàn

noble and lowly
high versus low social hierarchy of ruler to people, father to son, husband to wife in Confucianism

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

貴: Look up this written character
賤: Look up this written character
贵: guì · expensive, costly, valuable
贱: jiàn · mean, low; cheap, worthless

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–4 · gui4 jian4

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

2character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

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.

貴賤 · find source passages ↗ · 贵贱 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

(formal) superiority and inferiority (i.e. aristocrat or plebeian, rich or poor, etc.); social status
(formal) value of something (i.e. precious or cheap)

conj

(colloquial) in any case; regardless; in any event; anyway; anyhow

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack