身先朝露

Mandarin · pinyin shēn xiān zhāo lù

Meanings

  1. body will go with the morning dew (idiom); fig. ephemeral and precarious nature of human existence
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Characters in this entry

身
shēn · body; trunk, hull; Kangxi radical 158
先
xiān · first, former, previous
朝
cháo · dynasty; morning
露
lù · dew; bare, open, exposed
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–1–1–4 · shen1 xian1 zhao1 lu4

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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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Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

san1 sin1 ziu1 lou6

Cantonese word readings for 身先朝露. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

身先朝露 · shen1 xian1 zhao1 lu4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 105,704
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record身先朝露 身先朝露 [shen1 xian1 zhao1 lu4] /body will go with the morning dew (idiom); fig. ephemeral and precarious nature of human existence/