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乳臭未乾

简乳臭未干 · 繁乳臭未乾

Mandarin · pinyin rǔ xiù wèi gān

lit. smell of breast milk not yet dried (idiom)
fig. immature and inexperienced; still wet behind the ears

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Characters in this entry

乳: rǔ · breast, nipples; milk, suckle
臭: chòu · smell, stink, emit foul odor
未: wèi · not yet; eighth earthly branch
乾: qián · gān · dry; warming principle of the sun, penetrating and fertilizing, heavenly generative principle (male); trigram ☰; hexagram ䷀
干: gàn · oppose, offend; invade; dried

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

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Mandarin tones

3–4–4–1 · ru3 xiu4 wei4 gan1

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

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乳臭未乾 · find source passages ↗ · 乳臭未干 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jyu5 cau3 mei6 gon1

Cantonese word readings for 乳臭未乾. 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

(figurative, derogatory) still very young; wet behind the ears; callow

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

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