五顏六色

简 五颜六色 · 繁 五顏六色
Mandarin · pinyin wǔ yán liù sè

Meanings

  1. multicolored
  2. every color under the sun
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Characters in this entry

五
wǔ · five; surname
顏
Look up this written character
六
liù · number six
色
sè · color, tint, hue, shade; form, body; beauty, desire for beauty; Kangxi radical 139
颜
yán · face, facial appearance
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3–2–4–4 · wu3 yan2 liu4 se4

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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.

五顏六色 · find source passages ↗ · 五颜六色 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

ng5 ngaan4 luk6 sik1

Cantonese word readings for 五顏六色. 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

  1. (idiomatic) multicoloured; colourful; variegated; of many colors

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

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