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起子

Mandarin · pinyin qǐ zi

baking soda (used to leaven bread)
screwdriver
bottle opener

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Characters in this entry

起: qǐ · rise, stand up; go up; begin
子: zǐ · offspring, child; fruit, seed of; first earthly branch

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

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Mandarin tones

3–5 · qi3 zi5

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 9 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

bottle opener (device to open bottle)
(colloquial) screwdriver
(dialectal) baking powder
(dialectal) leavening dough
(Muping Mandarin) yeast; leaven

classifier

Classifier for people: group; crowd
(Ürümqi Mandarin) Classifier for incidents and legal cases.

verb

(literary) to nurture one's child
(chess, etc.) to make the first move

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

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