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事必躬親

简事必躬亲 · 繁事必躬親

Mandarin · pinyin shì bì gōng qīn

to attend to everything personally

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Characters in this entry

事: shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
必: bì · surely, most certainly; must
躬: gōng · body; personally, in person
親: qīn · relatives, parents; intimate
亲: qīn · relatives, parents; intimate the hazel nut or filbert tree a thorny tree

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

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Mandarin tones

4–4–1–1 · shi4 bi4 gong1 qin1

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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.

事必躬親 · find source passages ↗ · 事必躬亲 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

si6 bit1 gung1 can1

Cantonese word readings for 事必躬親. 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

(idiomatic) to take care of every single task personally

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

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