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除了

Mandarin · pinyin chú le

apart from; besides; in addition to (used to exclude, as in 除了他，誰也沒來 chú le tā, shéi yě méi lái "apart from him, nobody came", or to include, as in 除了英語，他也會法語 chú le Yīng yǔ, tā yě huì Fǎ yǔ "in addition to English, he also knows French")
(used to introduce one of two habitual alternatives in the pattern 除了 chú le + A + 就是 jiù shì + B, "either A or B")

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Characters in this entry

除: chú · eliminate, remove, except
了: le · to finish; particle of completed action

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

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Mandarin tones

2–5 · chu2 le5

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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

ceoi4 liu5

Cantonese word readings for 除了. 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.

prep

except; except for
besides; in addition to
(除了……，就是……) either ... or ...

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

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