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乾巴巴

简干巴巴 · 繁乾巴巴

Mandarin · pinyin gān bā bā

dry
parched
dull
insipid

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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 ䷀
巴: bā · greatly desire, anxiously hope
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

1–1–1 · gan1 ba1 ba1

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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.

乾巴巴 · find source passages ↗ · 干巴巴 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gon1 baa1 baa1

Cantonese word readings for 乾巴巴. 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.

adj

(ideophonic, of land, food, etc.) dry and hard; parched
(ideophonic, of speech, writing, etc.) dull; boring; insipid

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

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