上班

Mandarin · pinyin shàng bān

Meanings

  1. to go to work
  2. to be on duty
  3. to start work
  4. to go to the office
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Characters in this entry

上
shàng · top; superior, highest; go up, send up
班
bān · class, group, grade; squad; job
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–1 · shang4 ban1

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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

soeng5 baan1

Cantonese word readings for 上班. 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.

verb

  1. (intransitive, verb-object) to be on duty; to go to work; to begin one's work day; to begin one's shift
  2. (intransitive, verb-object) to be open (for business); to be trading

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

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