來路不明

简 来路不明 · 繁 來路不明
Mandarin · pinyin lái lù bù míng

Meanings

  1. unidentified origin
  2. no-one knows where it comes from
  3. of dubious background
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Characters in this entry

來
lái · come, coming; return, returning
路
lù · road, path, street; journey
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
明
míng · bright, light, brilliant; clear
来
lái · come, coming; return, returning
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–4–4–2 · lai2 lu4 bu4 ming2

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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.

來路不明 · find source passages ↗ · 来路不明 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

loi4 lou6 bat1 ming4

Cantonese word readings for 來路不明. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

來路不明 · lai2 lu4 bu4 ming2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 7,733
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record來路不明 来路不明 [lai2 lu4 bu4 ming2] /unidentified origin/no-one knows where it comes from/of dubious background/