九死一生

Mandarin · pinyin jiǔ sǐ yī shēng

Meanings

  1. nine deaths and still alive (idiom); a narrow escape
  2. new lease of life
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Characters in this entry

九
jiǔ · nine
死
sǐ · die; dead; death
一
yī · one; a, an; alone
生
shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3–3–1–1 · jiu3 si3 yi1 sheng1

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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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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) narrow escape from death

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

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

九死一生 · jiu3 si3 yi1 sheng1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 4,324
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record九死一生 九死一生 [jiu3 si3 yi1 sheng1] /nine deaths and still alive (idiom); a narrow escape/new lease of life/