DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

人為

简人为 · 繁人為

Mandarin · pinyin rén wéi

artificial
man-made
having human cause or origin
human attempt or effort

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
為: Look up this written character
为: wèi · do, handle, govern, act; be

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

2–2 · ren2 wei2

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

2character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

人為 · find source passages ↗ · 人为 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

verb

(formal) to have a human cause
(formal) to require human effort

adj

(attributive) artificial; man-made; contrived

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack