鄉愿

简 乡愿 · 繁 鄉愿
Mandarin · pinyin xiāng yuàn

Meanings

  1. (literary) hypocrite
  2. two-faced person
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Characters in this entry

鄉
Look up this written character
愿
yuàn · sincere, honest, virtuous
乡
xiāng · country; rural; village
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–4 · xiang1 yuan4

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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.

鄉愿 · find source passages ↗ · 乡愿 · find source passages ↗

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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.

noun

  1. (literary) hypocrite

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

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