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人煙稀少

简人烟稀少 · 繁人煙稀少

Mandarin · pinyin rén yān xī shǎo

no sign of human habitation (idiom); desolate

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Characters in this entry

人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
煙: Look up this written character
稀: xī · rare, unusual, scarce; sparse
少: shǎo · few, less, inadequate
烟: yān · smoke, soot; opium; tobacco, cigarettes

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

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Mandarin tones

2–1–1–3 · ren2 yan1 xi1 shao3

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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.

人煙稀少 · find source passages ↗ · 人烟稀少 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense

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 sparsely populated

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

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