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乾

简乾 · 干 · 繁乾

Mandarin · pinyin qián#

one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦 bā guà, symbolizing heaven
male principle
☰
ancient Chinese compass point: 315° (northwest)

Mandarin · pinyin gān#

dry
dried food
empty; hollow
taken in to nominal kinship; adoptive; foster
futile; in vain
(dialect) rude; blunt
(dialect) to cold-shoulder

Mandarin · pinyin Qián#

surname Qian

Mandarin · pinyin Gān#

surname Gan

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Characters in this entry

乾: qián · gān · dry; warming principle of the sun, penetrating and fertilizing, heavenly generative principle (male); trigram ☰; hexagram ䷀

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

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Mandarin tones

2 · qian2

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1character link37same-tone records1source reference

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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 20 senses · 2 Cantonese readings

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gon1 · kin4

Cantonese word readings for 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.

character · Etymology 1

dry; moistureless; waterless; arid
to dry; to exhaust
(obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese) to neglect; to snub
(colloquial) to drain one's glass; bottoms up
dried up; exhausted; drained
(of voice) dry and coarse
dried-up food
adopted; adoptive; foster
in vain; for nothing
falsely; superficially
not sweet; lacking sweetness

character · Etymology 2

first of the eight trigrams (bagua) used in Taoist cosmology, represented by the symbol ☰
first hexagram of the I Ching, represented by the symbol ䷀
(obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese, figurative) sky; heaven
(obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese, figurative) emperor; monarch
(obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese, figurative) sun
(obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese, figurative) northwest
(obsolete on its own in Standard Chinese, figurative) man; male
a surname

character · Etymology 3

(Min) alternative form of 焦 (“dry”)

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

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