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三五成群

Mandarin · pinyin sān wǔ chéng qún

in groups of three or four (idiom)

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Characters in this entry

三: sān · three
五: wǔ · five; surname
成: chéng · completed, finished, fixed
群: qún · group, crowd, multitude, mob

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

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Mandarin tones

1–3–2–2 · san1 wu3 cheng2 qun2

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

saam1 ng5 sing4 kwan4

Cantonese word readings for 三五成群. 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) in groups of three or five

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

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