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人浮於事

简人浮于事 · 繁人浮於事

Mandarin · pinyin rén fú yú shì

more hands than needed (idiom); too many cooks spoil the broth

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Characters in this entry

人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
浮: fú · to float, drift, waft; to exceed; superfluous
於: yú · yū · in, at, on; interjection alas!
事: shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
于: yú · in, on, at; go to; surname

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

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Mandarin tones

2–2–2–4 · ren2 fu2 yu2 shi4

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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.

人浮於事 · find source passages ↗ · 人浮于事 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jan4 fau4 jyu1 si6

Cantonese word readings for 人浮於事. 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 have more hands than needed; to be overstaffed

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

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