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主人翁

Mandarin · pinyin zhǔ rén wēng

master (of the house)
main character in a novel etc
hero or heroine

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Characters in this entry

主: zhǔ · master, chief owner; host; lord
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
翁: wēng · old man; father, father-in-law

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

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Mandarin tones

3–2–1 · zhu3 ren2 weng1

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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

zyu2 jan4 jung1

Cantonese word readings for 主人翁. 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.

noun

master (of one's affairs, destiny, etc.)
protagonist (main character)
(literary, honorific) host (person who receives or entertains other people as guests)

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

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