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人仰馬翻

简人仰马翻 · 繁人仰馬翻

Mandarin · pinyin rén yǎng mǎ fān

to suffer a crushing defeat (idiom)
in a pitiful state
in a complete mess
to roll (with laughter)

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Characters in this entry

人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
仰: yǎng · raise the head to look; look up to, rely on, admire
馬: Look up this written character
翻: fān · flip over, upset, capsize
马: mǎ · horse; surname; Kangxi radical 187

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

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Mandarin tones

2–3–3–1 · ren2 yang3 ma3 fan1

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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.

人仰馬翻 · find source passages ↗ · 人仰马翻 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jan4 joeng5 maa5 faan1

Cantonese word readings for 人仰馬翻. 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 be utterly routed; to suffer a crushing defeat
(idiomatic) in a complete mess

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

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