七手八腳

简 七手八脚 · 繁 七手八腳
Cantonese · source Jyutpingcat1 sau2 baat3 goek3

Meanings

  1. seven hands eight feet, which means there are a lot of people interfering and the situation is messy
About these definitions

Source definition segments, in their original order. Characters a definition cites are shown without their Mandarin pinyin; classifier lists that CC-Canto copied from CC-CEDICT are marked Mandarin. The community dictionary is not independently verified by zimai.

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Reading & tones

Schematic citation-tone diagrams from the source numbers. These are not recordings or predictions of connected speech.

Same syllable, six tones

cat七cat1sevencat2—cat3—cat4—cat5—cat6—
baatbaat1—baat2—八baat3eightbaat4—baat5—baat6—
goekgoek1—goek2—脚goek3footgoek4—goek5—goek6—

Characters whose customary Unihan reading (kCantonese) is this syllable in each tone, chosen as in the tone atlas (2013 standard level, then the number of CC-CEDICT words they form), with CC-Canto 2017's meaning for that reading; a dash means no catalogue character has that reading. Checked syllables (-p, -t, -k) normally carry tones 1, 3 and 6. Character readings, not word readings; no frequency implied.

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Written characters

Both source spellings are represented. Written membership is not an etymological or semantic claim.

Cantonese characters and the Mandarin bridge ↗

Mandarin comparison · separate source entries

CC-CEDICT, the Mandarin–English dictionary, lists the same written form:

A separate source entry, shown for comparison. The same characters can carry different senses in Mandarin and in Cantonese; zimai does not align these senses.

CC-Canto includes this pinyin reference: qi1 shou3 ba1 jiao3. It does not establish a Mandarin word with the same meaning.

Look up this spelling in the Mandarin dictionary ↗
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

cat1 sau2 baat3 goek3

Cantonese word readings for 七手八腳. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) with many people lending a hand; chaotically

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

CC-Canto · Pleco Inc. · edition 2017-02-02
Source line 325 · Original publisher · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Edition & transformations

Mandarin comparison: CC-CEDICT 2026-10-13, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source reading differences and six-tone sets: computed by zimai from Unihan 17.0.0 (Unicode License V3).

Exact source record & identity七手八腳 七手八脚 [qi1 shou3 ba1 jiao3] {cat1 sau2 baat3 goek3} /seven hands eight feet, which means there are a lot of people interfering and the situation is messy/

SHA-256: 43373a383d6e613a3a26ae933765d2e468bd450681bc231a8b598bfabf6681b2