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人五人六

Mandarin · pinyin rén wǔ rén liù

(idiom) to make a show of being decent and proper; to display phony or hypocritical behavior

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Characters in this entry

人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
五: wǔ · five; surname
六: liù · number six

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

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Mandarin tones

2–3–2–4 · ren2 wu3 ren2 liu4

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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 · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jan4 ng5 jan4 luk6

Cantonese word readings for 人五人六. 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

(chiefly derogatory) decent-looking; well-dressed

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

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