DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

一鳴驚人

简一鸣惊人 · 繁一鳴驚人

Mandarin · pinyin yī míng jīng rén

to amaze the world with a single brilliant feat (idiom); an overnight celebrity

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Characters in this entry

一: yī · one; a, an; alone
鳴: Look up this written character
驚: Look up this written character
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
鸣: míng · cry of bird or animal; make sound
惊: jīng · frighten, surprise, startle

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

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Mandarin tones

1–2–1–2 · yi1 ming2 jing1 ren2

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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.

一鳴驚人 · find source passages ↗ · 一鸣惊人 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jat1 ming4 ging1 jan4

Cantonese word readings for 一鳴驚人. 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

(idiomatic) to amaze the world with a single brilliant feat; to become famous overnight; to set the world on fire; a bolt from the blue

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

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