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一落千丈

Mandarin · pinyin yī luò qiān zhàng

lit. to drop a thousand zhang in one fall (idiom)
fig. (of business, popularity etc) to suffer a sudden, devastating decline
to take a dive

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Characters in this entry

一: yī · one; a, an; alone
落: luò · fall, drop; net income, surplus
千: qiān · thousand; many, numerous; very; (Cant.) a cheater, swindler
丈: zhàng · unit of length equal 3.3 meters; gentleman, man, husband

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

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Mandarin tones

1–4–1–4 · yi1 luo4 qian1 zhang4

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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 · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jat1 lok6 cin1 zoeng6

Cantonese word readings for 一落千丈. 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.

phrase

(figurative) to suffer a devastating decline; to decline drastically

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

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