五馬分屍
简 五马分尸 · 繁 五馬分屍Meanings
- (idiom) to tear off sb's four limbs and head using five horse-drawn carts (historical form of capital punishment); (fig.) to tear apart; to utterly destroy; to brutally dismember
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Mandarin tones
3–3–1–1 · wu3 ma3 fen1 shi1
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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.
五馬分屍 · find source passages ↗ · 五马分尸 · find source passages ↗
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading
Rime Cantonese 粵拼
ng5 maa5 fan1 si1
Cantonese word readings for 五馬分屍. 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
- (historical) to dismember a body by having five horses pull the limbs and head
- (synecdochic) to sentence someone capital punishment; to execute
- (figurative) to fragmentate; to fractionize; to split something up into fragments
Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history
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